


Do I Wanna Know?

by idiom



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, PTSD, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Tension, Snow Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-14 20:06:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2201379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idiom/pseuds/idiom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve died saving Bucky and three hundred other soldiers from the 107th. They got out, but Steve didn’t make that jump. He fell down into the inferno of the exploding HYDRA base. Genetically modified by Zola, Bucky took over Steve’s role as ‘Captain America’, vying to avenge his friend’s death by killing every last HYDRA agent he could find.<br/>-<br/>The future could have turned out so different.<br/>In another universe, Bucky became Captain America and Steve became... something else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by thetendershark’s gif sets ([AU: Reversed roles | Steve becomes the Winter Soldier](http://thetendershark.tumblr.com/tagged/snowsoldier%20headcanon)). Title is from an Arctic Monkey’s song which is pure sex. [Listen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpOSxM0rNPM). It was a fitting title because this is the exact opposite of my last fluffy TLC fic: ‘I Already Know’. I am done with the fluff. There is no... fluff... here.... (well less... shut up)
> 
> WARNING: HEED MY TAGS. This fic is going to go to very dark potentially triggering places and will include scenes depicting torture and sexual violence. 

-

Everything was up in flames before Bucky even got a chance to thank Steve for saving him from Zola’s lab. Bombs were going off one after another. Bucky and Steve climbed high to escape the blaze, but soon there was nowhere left to go.

“Gotta be a rope or something!” Bucky cried from the other side of the rafters. Steve was so far from him, his eyes on the place where his path to safety had been, his path to Bucky. After the beam fell, there hadn’t been any way across and nothing between them except a burning inferno.

Bucky looked around frantically searching for a way out. The fact that there hadn’t been one still tore at his chest seventy years later.

Steve tore his gaze from the fire eventually, looking back up where his sorrowful eyes met with Bucky’s. His face bore an expression that read simply: ‘Only one of us is going to come out of this alive and if I can help it it’s going to be you.’

“Just go! Get out of here!” Steve called back to Bucky, gesturing towards the exit just behind him. He grit his teeth when Bucky didn’t move.

Of course he wouldn’t.

“No! Not without you!” Bucky shouted, angry that Steve could even conceive that he would ever leave him behind.

Bucky’s body had been shaking, not just as a consequence of the torture and experimental torment that Zola had inflicted upon him, but with fear. He felt further from Steve in that moment than he had when there had been an entire ocean between them.

Steve looked around and eventually conceded a plan - a crazy plan that had inevitably been his downfall.

Bucky watched as Steve bent the railing on the edge of the rafters with an impossible ease. He created a opening. With determination in his eyes, Steve took a few steps back and then he ran.

-

Bucky had seen him take that impossible leap. He’d seen his best friend’s hands slip from the smooth railing and he’d reached out to grasp it. Their finger tips had touched, then Steve’s hand slipped away.

Steve fell.

He'd died in that inferno.

And there was no moving past that. Not for Bucky.

-

Bucky escaped the HYDRA base with his life, or what was left of it with Steve gone. When he led the march of rescued soldiers back to their base-camp without the Captain at his side. Celebrations were subdued, but filled with relief. Upon seeing the troop return minus one, Peggy Carter retreated to the officers tent.

Howard Stark immediately started running tests on Bucky who looked so strangely wan and broken without a single visible injury. The science team found that he had been experimented on and possibly tortured, but Bucky couldn’t tell them how or why. He didn't remember any of it and the evidence of exactly what had happened was not present on his body.

“Well, you inhaled a lot of smoke and chemical debris in that fire, James,” Howard noted, showing Bucky the blackened x-ray of his chest. “This is from when you arrived an hour ago. And this is the one we took just now.” Howard put up a second x-ray next to the first. “Damage. Gone. Smoke. Gone. Lungs.” Howard tapped the transparent sheet. “Like brand stinking new.”

It didn’t take much more research to figure out that his body had been changed. Bucky had been made into some offshoot, bootlegged version of a super soldier.

As Doctor Erskine had done to Steve, Zola had done to Bucky.

The suits in Washington wanted him sent home, to be given an honourable discharge, but Bucky rejected the order. He picked up a shield from Howard’s lab, walked up to Peggy Carter and told her he wasn’t going to stop until all of HYDRA was either dead or captured.

Peggy looked him up and down. Bucky was worried she would scowl, tell him to go back to the barracks and sleep off whatever little rebellion had come over him. But instead, she sucked in a breath and replied simply,

“Then what are you waiting for?”

It was agreed that if Bucky and his new body could do what they’d all seen Steve, it was believed that using him the Allies could win the war within a month. To be certain, Stark injected Bucky with the serum enhanced blood they'd collected from Steve, hoping to preserve what hope they had left of using their super soldier serum to win the war.

Steve and Bucky had always been like brothers, but now they shared blood. Bucky would never forget that.

Yes, Steve had died, but because of him, every soldier who had been captured and locked away in that HYDRA base was alive and well. Steve’s Captain America became a martyr. A symbol of hope and victory that could rise out of the ashes like a phoenix reborn.

In Bucky, Captain America's legacy could live on.

Bucky was the one charged with putting together a team. He was still suffering psychologically from the loss of his best friend, but he and his Howling Commandoes would avenge him. Bucky lead the men across Europe destroying HYDRA bases one by one, sending a message straight to Red Skull himself.

While commanding the entire troop on a mission to take down HYDRA’s Headquarters, their final task, Bucky found himself alone on the front line, face to face with the monster of a man he blamed for Steve’s death. 

Bucky followed Red Skull onto his bomber. With relative ease, he defeated the HYDRA leader along with all of his agents aboard the flying vessel. For a moment, it seemed that victory had been achieved.

They'd won.

But then Bucky looked at the display. 

Every missile on the ship was armed and there was no time or manner to neutralize the bombs.

Bucky concluded that his option was to send the ship somewhere it wouldn’t cause any damage. But there was no auto pilot. So he flew it north himself. He stared out over the ice, his resolve clear and his gaze focused even as the voices over the intercom told him there had to be some other way. 

Bucky braced himself, breathing heavily.

He was ready.

He brought the ship down, smashing through the ice. The front window smashed inward and front part of the plane flooded with sub-zero water. Bucky didn’t have time to escape. His body went into shock and he froze bare seconds after the water rushed over him.

-

Bucky woke in a strange room surrounded by object from his time. They seemed somehow out of time though. Everything in the room looked artificial.

Bucky was still reeling when a woman came in. She quickly briefed him on what had happened and where he was, but Bucky didn’t pick up much of what she was saying. His head was spinning and trying to shake it off only made it worse. He tried to listen to her words, but they sounded so very foreign. 

Where was he? A SHIELD facility? What?

Bucky tried to sit up in the bed, but nearly pushed himself over the left edge. His body was completely off balance. A glance down told him why. 

His left arm was gone. A second before, he would have sworn he could still feel it there, but when he looked... nothing. Just the place where his shoulder had once been, it dipped inward and scars lined his chest where his flesh had been stitched back into place.

“You lost it in the crash,” the SHIELD agent explained softly. She sat on the end of his bed and smiled at him. “My name is Sharon Carter. I’m here to help answer any questions you might have.”

Bucky’s face pinched. “Carter?”

The agent seemed surprised by the recognition in his tone, but she just smiled again and gave a short nod. “I think you knew my aunt.”

Bucky was taken aback. This was Peggy Carter’s niece? But Peggy’s sister was just a baby. This woman, Sharon, had to be at least Peggy’s age.

Bucky shook his head.

No.

How long had he been out?

It was impossible.

Panic started to set in. Sharon’s voice asking him if he was alright was replaced by a high pitched ringing in his ears. He could vaguely see her moving in his peripheral vision, but his eyes were locked on a unimportant spot on the gaudy patterned wallpaper.

Bucky wanted out of there. He wanted to go home.

He wanted... Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly, this fic won’t have the cute play along comment/kudo end notes. It feels like it’s going to be a bit too angsty and dramatic for that.
> 
> Come find me on [Tumblr](http://itsanidiom.tumblr.com/)


	2. Welcome to the 21st Century

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me use this chapter to put things into AU perspective. So this is a bit more fun and smut and less angst... but do not let it fool you. Be prepared for future angst.

Nick Fury was one of the first people from the not-so-secret organization, SHIELD, that Bucky had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting. The man was tough as nails, and seemed to have very little concern for Bucky’s mental or physical wellbeing. From what Bucky could gather upon their first meeting at the SHIELD facility, all that Fury wanted to know was if the super soldier could still fight.

After Bucky all but actually absconded from the place they’d been housing him in, Fury had decided something more casual was in order. Even though Bucky was trying to lay low and avoid SHIELD altogether, Fury found a way to contact him through one of his agents, Natasha Romanoff. Using her as a middleman, they arranged a meeting at a small café near the flat Bucky was renting.

“Fury’s one of the good guys,” Natasha had promised.

But after hearing out the plans the man now seated across from him had, Bucky wasn’t so sure about that. Fury talked about pros and cons, security and patriotism for a good long while, but all Bucky had gotten out of it was-

“You want to use me as an agent?” he demanded, glaring narrowly at the man sitting across from him.

“We want you to reenlist,” Fury replied, amending the statement to sound softer. New words didn’t change the sentiment behind the old ones.

Bucky scoffed. “I’m done with the army,” he muttered. His eyes were distant as he stared down at the plain white mug filled with cheap coffee. It honestly worked better as a hand warmer than it did beverage.

“This isn’t the army, this is intelligence.” Fury folded his hands on the table and leaned forward slightly. “I want you to come start training to work for SHIELD,” he said, sombrely.

It was a question Fury had already asked before and whatever response he thought that he would get asking a second time, Bucky didn’t give. He just keep staring into his coffee and his apparent stubbornness was grating on Fury.

“Look, kid,” Fury snapped, “You are a super soldier, the best and brightest, an example of everything this country has to offer all wrapped up into one neat package. Excuse me for trying to exploit that, but your country needs you.”

That received a cold, reproachful glance from Bucky.

“Look, kid,” he snapped right back in the tone of someone who looked nearly four times older than he did, “I never wanted the army to be my life. The army was how my life ended. I didn’t have any sort of aspiration to die for my country before the war.” With a short half-hearted laugh, Bucky went on. “Besides, I wouldn’t be reenlisting, because I didn’t enlist. I got drafted, like most of the other guys I knew back then. I was called up, so I went. I had to, just like everyone else. Stevie was the one who-” Bucky stopped, biting his tongue. Shaking his head with an exasperated sigh, he stood from his seat.

“Sorry, but you’re wasting your time.”

Bucky was already walking away from the table when Fury calmly called out, “Wait.”

Just as he reached the door, Bucky turned just in time to see that man retrieving something from his inside jacket pocket.

“You worked with Howard Stark? During the war?” Fury asked, even though he obviously didn’t have to. Bucky knew SHIELD had a file on him hidden away somewhere with all of that information and more.

“That’s right,” Bucky replied. The phrase ‘what of it?’ was present in his tone, but it went left unsaid.

Fury held out a card. It was black with silver lettering and the logo of ‘Stark Industries’ was written across the front. There was no other information on the card, no phone number, no address, nothing.

“This is from Howard’s son, Tony Stark. He continued the family business of being a freaky genius, not that he’s modest about it. He agreed to help you out after we found your body in the ice.”

“I don’t need any help,” Bucky scoffed. He went to hand the card back to Fury, but he shook his head.

“Barnes,” Fury said evenly. “Just take the damn card.”

Bucky let out an amused huff. Finally relenting, he took the card and flipped the shining black thing between his fingers. Looking at back he could see the other side was silver with a black strip near the top. Bucky had seen people using similar cards to pay for things, but he still didn’t really understand how that worked.

“What exactly did this Stark kid agree to help me with?” Bucky wondered.

Fury let out a short chuckle as he tossed a tip onto the table they had just vacated.

“Well,” he started as he walked past Bucky to the door, “I think he mentioned something about working on a robotic arm.”

-

Bucky left the café, angry because it was his favourite spot and he knew he couldn’t return because if he did SHIELD would have eyes on him. He’d already noticed that their barista that day had been suspiciously new and efficient.

Bucky didn’t need SHIELD. He had enough money provided from a backlog of veteran’s military pensions to live comfortably, and he planned to do just that.

He bought a small flat in D.C. only a few minutes walk from the National Mall. He went running there in the mornings every other day. One morning, he did something a little different. He stopped to talk to a man he’d lapped about half a dozen times.

-

It started out with honest polite intent. The first time he passed same he breathed out a quick, “On your right,” just to let the man know he was coming up behind him. However on the second and third and fourth times, Bucky had to keep the smirk off his face as the other man got more and more verbally frustrated with the little utterance.

Bucky caught up to him again on the fifth lap and found the man panting against the trunk of a tree. A bit of friendly banter led to the start of the first real friendship Bucky had known since waking up in the 21st century.

The man introduced himself as Sam and the two of them got to talking. They realized quickly that they shared similar life experiences. Sam had been with the army’s airborne division before loosing his wingman on a mission over enemy territory. After that he’d come home and started working at the VA downtown. Bucky didn’t really need to tell Sam about Steve.

They bonded over the memories and loss and became fast friends. Before they went to part ways, they decided to meet up at the Mall to jog together every other day.

-

Bucky never really got the opportunity to thank Sam for it, but the man ended up being one of the most important pieces of Bucky’s rehabilitation in those first few weeks after waking up in the modern world.

-

“So you’ve still got a lot of adjustments to make, huh?” Sam started. They had just finished a run around the Mall and were taking a rest on a clean set of stone steps that overlooked the Reflecting Pool.

“How so?” Bucky replied, his voice carrying a lazy drawl.

He seemed tired, but not from the run. Just in general.

Sam had seen that look a thousand times during his time at the VA, it always worried him. “Well, from what you’ve told me, you were turned into a super soldier, died then woke up seventy years into the future missing a limb after that traumatic crash they found you in.”

Bucky looked at the place where he’d tied off a sleeve to cover his shoulder. He shrugged and looked back out over the water.

“Yeah, my life pretty grotty,” he muttered.

“Hey, don’t frame it like that man.”

“Sorry.” Bucky ran his hand over his face and let out a haggard breath. “I’m terribly company. If it were Steve here instead of me, he’d probably be cracking you up. He always had a good gag or two.”

“You sure do talk about Steve Rogers a lot,” Sam said, nudging Bucky. “I’ve seen the exhibit, but best friends doesn’t seem to cut it. You guys really must have been close.”

Bucky tensed up as soon as Sam nudged him. “Ah, it was... complicated.”

Sam chuckled, raising his hands to yield. “If it’s gonna make you blush, I’ll drop it,” he laughed.

Bucky laughed along with him, but was very thankful when Sam quickly changed the subject.

“So, you thinking about getting a prosthetic? A lot of soldiers I’ve talked to say it can help you trying to get your life back to how it was.”

“I’m pretty sure my life is fubar.” Bucky clicked his tongue, not looking at Sam because he already knew that he had his stern counsellor face on. “I mean, life’s not ever gonna be the same for me, but yeah, I have been thinking about getting an arm. I was told to pay a visit to Stark industries.”

Bucky reached into his wallet and pulled out the card Fury had given him. He showed Sam the card only to have it snatched out of his hand almost immediately.

“This is a key card!”

“A what?” Bucky asked. He didn’t get an answer, Sam was far too excited.

He put a hand on what remained of Bucky’s left shoulder, and took a few deep breaths. “Is this from Stark? Tony Stark? The Tony Stark?”

“Yeah, you know him?”

Sam let out an amused scoff, throwing his head back. He nodded vigorously with a salient air of sarcasm. “Yeah, man. Me and Stark are tight! I’m just at all those big star-studded events with models on both my arms. Look out! There’s probably paparazzi hiding around here right now. We’d better watch it. Be cool, man. Be cool.”

Bucky laughed as he watched Sam frantically look around, craning his neck to see over the bushes.

“Okay, stop,” Bucky said, before Sam fractured something. “So this guy is a pretty big deal? I’m not surprised, his dad, Howard, was a bit of a grandstand himself.”

“I can tell you’re underselling that,” Sam replied with a big smile. “Okay, so what’s Stark offered? Besides accesses to Stark Tower,” he added, waving the card.

“Oh, that’s what this gets me,” Bucky made a small sound of realization that made Sam want to sob. Bucky almost felt bad that he really wasn’t as excited about the whole situation as Sam seemed to be.

“I don’t know what this is about really. Someone mentioned a robot arm?” Bucky shrugged. “I’m not sure if I want that though.”

Sam actually did sob that time. “You’re not what!?”

“I’m not sure I-”

“Okay, you know what, don’t repeat it. I’m still recovering from the first time.” Sam leaned back away from Bucky with an incredulous look in his eyes. “Why? Why don’t you want an awesome Stark tech arm?”

Bucky just shrugged. He just didn’t want the hassle really. He was fine.

“Look man, if you don’t at least go visit Stark Tower and get a tour or something I- I don’t even know what I’ll do. Never forgive you, that’s what. Man, what I would give to afford some of the awesome that comes out of that building.”

Bucky watched Sam’s face contort in an expression of Stark fanboy bliss.

“Okay,” Bucky relented, “I’ll definitely think about it some more.”

“You do that, now-” Sam stood and offered a hand to help Bucky to his feet “-I’ve got to head to work.”

With a feigned look of anger, Sam stabbed at Bucky’s chest with one finger. “You think about that awesome arm you could have, man. You think hard,” he said, one last time.

Bucky lowered his head, trying to hide a smile. “Have a good day at work.”

After Sam left, Bucky decided to do a few more laps around the reflecting pool before jogging home.

-

Bucky immediately went to his room and lay heavily on the bed. He stared at the plain white ceiling, his jaw tight as he contemplated the conversation he’d had with Sam. His brain was still stuck on the first half of it, after Sam had mentioned his relationship with Steve.

What had been between him and Steve growing up, it wasn’t really complicated. That was just an easy opt out.

What was Bucky supposed to tell Sam? He’d been in an illicit relationship with a man since the 1930s? Captain America was gay? No one knew about that and while Sam was a good friend, Bucky wasn’t ready for anyone to know. He wasn’t sure if he would ever be.

Well, what would be the point anyway? Steve was gone.

With a heavy sigh, Bucky pulled an pocket watch from the bedside table. He flicked it out to reveal a picture of Steve stuck to the inside of the lid. The picture was an old one, from back before the war had started. Steve was smiling timidly at the camera, it had taken a while for him to agree to a picture. He’s been so small and self-conscious, so different from the last time Bucky had seen him.

Bucky looked at the image and the memories brought tears to his eyes. Some nights he cried. Other nights he threw things. Most of the time, he just stayed awake, staring at the tiny photograph, wondering what it would be like if Steve were there, alive with him.

-

-

“I’m always scared I’ll break you,” Bucky chuckled from his place kneeling, just hovering, slightly above Steve’s lap. He spoke between kisses, pressing another to Steve’s lips even as he pouted in response to Bucky’s words.

They were in bed, in their tiny flat in Brooklyn. It was a hot summer evening and there was hard any air circulating in their muggy little room. They were both naked and hard.

“I’ll be fine, Buck.” Steve was leaning back against the headboard, tracing tiny patterns only he could see onto Bucky’s torso. “If it helps you can close your eyes and try to pretend I’m one of those Beefcakes like Buster Crabbe, or something.”

“Don’t get fresh with me, Stevie. You know, I only think about you when we do this.” Bucky chuckled and leaned down over the small body beneath him.

Their lips met as they had done a hundred times before in a deep, passionate kiss. Bucky moaned into Steve’s mouth as the smaller man’s hands moved to grip at his hips. Steve grew more insistent and he soon arched up off the headboard to press more firmly against Bucky.

Steve caressed Bucky’s waist. His hands slid around to Bucky’s lower back then down over the curve of his rear before squeezing. Steve grinned at the way Bucky’s hips jerked against him.

Bucky broke their kiss to suck in a sharp breath.

“Still mind me getting fresh?” Steve whispered against his lips.

Bucky didn’t reply. He just pressed forward kiss with a renewed hunger. His tongue moved in to slide wetly against Steve’s as their lips parted. A whole new heat rose between them.

The bed creaked as the moved their hips together. Steve took both of them in hand, stroking them between their sweaty bodies. Bucky could only grasp at Steve’s slim shoulders, holding so tight he already knew Steve’s sensitive skin would have bruises come the morning.

Steve’s other hand not busy working their cocks was still gently massaging Bucky’s ass. He gripped the firm flesh then let his fingers slip down. He revelled in Bucky pleasure, loving the way he gasped as Steve let his middle finger rubbed the soft hidden place between the furrow of his cheeks.

Steve noticed Bucky’s body shift above him, reaching for something. A second later he felt Bucky’s fingers, wet with slick join his. Steve moved his hand away with a soft moan, letting Bucky prepare himself.

“I’m gonna ride you ‘til you can’t even think straight, Stevie,” Bucky breathed.

Steve grinned. “I don’t think I’ve thought straight for a long while, Buck.”

Bucky let out a short huff of a laugh. He leaned over and came back to remove Steve’s hands from them and wrap his slick fingers around Steve’s length, giving the shaft a firm stroke that made the smaller man grit his teeth to keep from letting out a groan.

“Don’t hold out on me,” Bucky uttered. His voice was already rough.

Steve opened his eyes just in time to see Bucky settling over him. With a wicked smile, Bucky lowered himself back onto Steve. As soon as he sunk down, his eyes fell closed and he let out a loud groan, overtly compensating for the one Steve had held in.

Steve threw his head back, knocking it against the headboard as he was enveloped by the warm heat of Bucky’s body. It was so good. It was always so good.

Bucky held onto the headboard, not trusting himself not to squeeze Steve’s shoulders too tight. He used it as leverage, raising himself up and down, riding Steve’s cock, hungry for the pleasure as it drove into him again and again.

Steve wasn’t so careful with Bucky. He held his hips with a bruising force, his thumbs digging into the line of muscle that led down from Bucky’s hips to his pelvis. It was so hard not to try and pull Bucky down onto him, harder and faster.

Bucky felt a heat welling up inside his abdomen. It was a tightness that centered in his core, framed by Steve’s hands on his hips. Each time he dropped down onto Steve’s length, the heat rose higher.

“Ah, yes.” Bucky fisted his cock as it reached its peak. He leaned back and gripped one of Steve’s knees, changing the angle. His hand moved faster over his shaft, his thumb rubbing the tip. His hips rolled and the sudden burst of pleasure that shot through him came as a shock. The quick pulses that wracked Bucky’s body took him by surprise and he nearly bit clean through his lip as he came.

Steve was frantic beneath him, tilting his hips when Bucky suddenly stopped moving above him.

“Bucky,” he groaned as he thrust up one last time. His hips jerked and his body shuddered then froze. They could both feel the strength of his orgasm rushing through them.

As he came down from his high, Bucky pressed his forehead against Steve’s.

Steve laughed breathlessly at that, his eyes fluttering as hot puffs of air hit him in the face with each of Bucky’s panting breaths. They shared a chaste blissed out kiss.

“You’re gonna miss me when I start training,” Bucky whispered once they were just lying in bed together. He wrapped one arm around Steve’s tiny waist and pulled him in close.

“Yeah well, I’ll be over there with you within the week.”

Bucky smiled sadly, but the expression quickly faded.

“Where are you gonna tell them from this time?” he chuckled.

Steve just smirked in reply. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

-

-

It took a few weeks, but Bucky eventually broke down after a lot of repeated prodding from Sam. He drove out to New York one morning, taking the long way just to enjoy a calming drive. He arrived downtown in the earliest part of the afternoon.

Bucky stepped out of his car, parking on the street right in front of Stark tower where a special parking meter allowed him to swipe the black Stark Industries card to secure his vehicle.

Bucky did this hesitantly and ran his fingers through his hair. He looked at the card in his hand and then up at the tower looming overhead. Holding the card up, he focus his gaze between it the signage on the building stretching into the sky above him. He could see now why this guy, Tony, hadn’t bothered to include an address.

Stark Tower was the tallest, most prominent and unmistakably hideous building in the city.

A tall, blonde haired woman exited the building and caught sight of Bucky practically bent back in half at the waist looking up at the tower. At first she shook her head, thinking he was just another tourist, but then she noticed the black card in his hand.

“It’s something, isn’t it?” She chuckled, gracing him a wide smile. “Are you meeting someone inside?”

“I think I’m here to see the man himself,” Bucky replied. With a bit of an awkward laugh, he waved the card he’d received from Fury.

The woman gave him a quick up and down, took one more look at the card and it seemed that was all she needed to suss out who exactly he was.

“You must be James Barnes. Nice to meet you, I’m Pepper Potts, Tony’s assistant.”

Pepper held out her left hand, and for a second Bucky just stared at it. She was quick to correct herself without ceremony, holding out her right instead.

They shook hands and Pepper gestured towards the building.

“I was about to go for lunch, but I’ll take you up to Tony first. He’s not really doing anything.”

That couldn’t have been more true.

Tony was sitting out on his porch on a lawn chair wearing a pair of black goggles. Lined up in front of him there were three sheets of metal and the metal glove from his Iron Man suit on his arm. ‘Not really doing anything,’ turned out to be testing the durability of a new metal alloy by firing a hand laser at it. Two of the sheets took the laser, but one melted and the laser went right though it, killing a pigeon that had the misfortune to being flying by.

“JARVIS, write that down,” Tony called out to no one Bucky could see.

He thought it was strange until an elegant voice snarkily replied. “I would if I could hold a pen, sir, but I will take note of it, sir.”

Rolling her eyes, Pepper opened the glass door and nudged Bucky out onto the patio.

“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted.”

“Uh.” Before Bucky had a chance to form a protest, Tony piped up.

“Pepper? I thought you were taking a lunch-” Tony turned his head and looked over to see Bucky just standing there alone, looking like a deer caught in headlights.

“Huh, you’re not Pepper.”

Bucky frowned and replied simply, “No.”

Tony raised his goggles, letting them slap against his forehead. Hopping up in one quick movement, he stood from his chair and approached Bucky.

Like Pepper had done before, Tony looked him up and down, taking in the sleeve hanging limp and empty at his left shoulder. He thoughtful for a moment and then snapped his fingers.

“You’re the super soldier? Barnes? James? Whatever. Did SHIELD send you over? I though Fury would have given you my card ages ago. What took you so long?”

Bucky stared at Tony, completely deadpan.

“You writing a book?” he asked abruptly.

“I don’t understand that reference,” Tony replied quickly.

“You sure are asking a lot of questions.”

“Well, sorry if I like to get to know people who suddenly show up at on my porch. How’d you get in here anyway?”

“Well, your assistant, she-”

“Oh right, Pepper. She’s great.”

“Well, I was going to say she let me in, but yeah I guess she seems nice.”

Tony smiled and gave Bucky a hardy pat on the arm. “You and me are going to get on famously. Now, to the lab!”

Bucky was ushered back through the same glass door that Pepper had only just shoved him out of. They were back inside the penthouse and heading towards a concrete stairwell. The stairwell was lined with glass and at the end of it was a door that the entire way down Bucky could see it led into a space full of an array of technology the likes of which he’d never seen.

“Hell, you really are Howard’s kid aren’t you?” Bucky murmured as they entered the room.

“Hell. Accurate,” Tony scoffed, but Bucky didn’t notice his distain, he was too busy taking in all the modern tech around him with a look of awe. It had been overwhelming back in the 40s when he just still didn’t understand the science, but now Bucky wasn’t even sure how the science behind half of what he was seeing could even be understood by anyone.

Anyone apart from it’s creator that is and Tony wasn’t too good at explaining things in layman’s terms. Bucky quickly discovered this while Tony was going over the specs of the arm he’d built.

“So, since you had no plans for picking up the captain’s shield again. I shredded it down a bit and used the shavings to create a metal alloy-“

“In English, please.” Bucky cut in, already willing back a headache.

Tony opened his mouth, but no words came out. He grit his teeth and tried to think of anyway to explain it more simply that he already was. With a heavy sigh, he resorted to saying, “How about I just show you?”

“That’s probably a good plan.”

The table Tony had set up was just a mishmash of wires and metal plates. Bucky couldn’t see how together they could amount to any distinct shape, never mind something as complex as an arm. However, with the press of a button, three-dimensional images of the pieces appeared above them with thin blue lines connecting each piece to its floating counterpart. The holographic images slowly moved together, assembling into a neat model.

That was when Bucky first saw it. An arm made of metal. His new arm.

“Wow,” he breathed. “But... why metal?”

Tony made an annoyed noise and muttered something with the word ‘ungrateful’ in it.

“This particular alloy is nearly indestructible, it’s one of the one’s I was testing out on the porch. Not the pigeon killer,” he said this, with a bitter edge. “ _And_ it conducts nerve signals like something out of a science fiction novel. Check out these component stats, you’ll be just about able to control this arm as if it were your own, touch, feel, all that jazz with the added bonus that it’s freaking bullet proof. Awesome! Am I right?”

Bucky blinked. “Why would I need a bullet proof-?”

Tony didn’t give him the chance to finish. He raised a finger in the air, silencing Bucky.

“Barnes,” Tony uttered, speaking slowly. “You can either take off your shirt, and we can get to work. Or you can join me for a drink and drive on back to D.C.” He then gestured to the comfortable black chair next to the table.

“It’s your call.”

With some thoughtful hesitation, Bucky slowly unzipped his hoodie and pulled it off. The hoodie was followed swiftly by his shirt. He tossed them haphazardly to the size, not missing the way Tony’s eyes roamed over him and the scars across his left side.

“Does this mean I can’t have that drink?” Bucky asked with a cheeky, hopeful grin. It faded when he looked up and found that half of Tony’s face was obscured by a white surgical mask, and only his narrow eyes could be seen.

“No alcohol before surgery,” Tony mumbled through the mask. His eyes shone with a sort of mirth that worried Bucky.

“Right,” Bucky said as Tony placed a oxygen mask over his mouth.

Tony started a general aesthetic and there were a few hazy moments before Bucky slipped into the dark.

-

“Welcome back to the land of the living Barnes.”

Bucky groaned and made to sit up, but Tony was quick to stop him.

“Woah! Easy on the unfinished tech there, pal.”

Bucky looked down at the wiry frame of a hand. It looked like a skinned human hand, but instead of bone there was metal and rather than muscles and tendons there were wires and other unfamiliar technology that Bucky could not figure out. The shoulder, where it attached, was mostly finished though, apart from the pieces a very dexterous robot controlled by JARVIS was putting into place.

“So, it’s not finished?” Bucky asked.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Tony replied.

That raised a short laugh out of Bucky. At Tony’s strange glance he started saying, “I understood that ref-” but was cut off by the sound of the lab door opening. A man walked in wearing full military dress, obviously just stopping by on his way to some function.

“Hey, Tony, I have some paperwork that I needed you to do like yester- huh,” the man at the door stopped abruptly and he looked between Tony and Bucky with a frown.

Tony looked over at him with both brows raised. “Rhodey, glad to see you dropping in unannounced. JARVIS, why didn’t you announce him?” Tony said, glaring pointedly into one of JARVIS’ cameras.

“Busy welding mister Barnes’ arm onto his body without murdering him, sir.”

“Excuses.”

Rhodey’s brow creased. “Sargent Barnes?” he said.

Bucky cocked his head to one side. He realized he’d met this man once at the VA for a debrief after he’d woken up. Rhodey had been the one who’d help him arrange his finances through with the military pensions office.

“Colonel Rhodes,” he said politely in reply even while Tony was ignoring Rhodey’s, getting back to work on the intricate system that attached Bucky’s nerves to the arm.

Rhodey watched this with a dark frown. “Tony, what the hell are you doing to this poor man?”

“Well,” Tony huffed indignantly, “I am doing my noble serviceman here a service.”

“Is this some kind of new project?”

“James is not a project. God Rhodey, show some decorum. He’s a human begin for Christ's sake.”

Rhodey looked up at the ceiling, shaking his head. “Right, well I need this paperwork on that new Iron Patriot upgrade done, Tony.” He looked around and set the work down on the one corner of empty space he could find.

Tony waved him off. “I’ll take care of it. Now, do you want to stay and help me hold my tools?” he asked, biting back a smirk.

Rhodey froze and just stared at him for a second. Then he shook his head.

“You know,” he chuckled, “as fun as that sounds, I have a function to get to. There’s an event planning session being hosted by Alexander Pierce in D.C. this evening and I’ve still got to get my car washed.”

“Whatever, man. You go to your little event. You’re only going to miss being privy to the greatest advance in prosthetic technology in the last-” the door closed and Rhodey waved through the glass on his way up the stairs, gesturing briefly to the paperwork before he disappeared out of sight.

“-century,” Tony finished, drearily.

“I don’t think he cares,” Bucky whispered.

“Quiet. Projects can’t talk.”

Bucky snorted out a laugh.

They sat in silence for a while as Tony went back to work. He was placing plates now, slowly forming the shape of Bucky’s fingers. Each plate was attached to a node which in turn was attached to a wire that would be able to transmit sensation once the arm was full activated. Until then, Bucky couldn't move it.

When the final piece was put in place, Tony lifted Bucky's new hand off the table to get a closer look. He checked the arm over, making sure it wasall ready to be activated. As he did so, he decided to break the silence between them.

“So, Cap-”

“Don’t call me that,” Bucky interrupted Tony as soon as the word left his mouth.

Tony was quick to back off. He continued checking on Bucky’s new hand in silence, only piping up when the air between them got too awkward for him to bear. Hell, even JARVIS was giving off some weird vibes.

“Not a fan of titles?”

“I don’t even remember officially getting given any rank above sergeant,” Bucky let out a humourless chuckle.

“Huh,” Tony hummed. He let Bucky’s arm fall back to the table and scratched at his beard thoughtfully. “I’m sure I remember getting dragged along to some kind of posthumous award ceremony when I was a kid.”

Bucky let out a dour grunt. “Yeah, well, rank doesn’t mean much when you’re dead.”

“Right, dead,” Tony drawled, his expression took on a apprehensive edge. “So, the whole ‘Captain America’ thing just came along with the whole super soldier thing then, did it?”

“Pretty much,” Bucky muttered.

Tony raised a brow and said no more for a while. He just kept on working.

It started getting dark outside before Tony was finished. Once the last piece of metal sheeting was in place, Bucky looked down to see his shiny new arm. He couldn’t move it though, it just lay there limp at his side.

“I’m going to activate it now.” Tony said. He already had a machine in place. He’d explained that it would send an electrical current through the arm that would activate the final link between Bucky’s nerves and the tech inside the arm.

He’d said more, but Bucky hadn’t really understood past that.

“Well? Are you ready?”

Bucky looked between his new arm and Tony. Taking a deep breath, he nodded.

“Ready.”

The jolt that went through him caused Bucky’s entire body to jerk. He closed his eyes and winced as a strange sensation welled up inside his brain.

Then there was a mechanical buzzing sound next to him. Bucky opened his eyes and raised his hands to his face. Both of them.

His gaze was foggy from the electric current, but soon it cleared and before his eyes he could see his hands. Flesh and metal.

He balled them into fists and they moved in unison. He turned the metal hand, looking at it from every angle. Then he put it down under him and used it to push off the chair and help him stand up.

Bucky vaguely heard Tony saying something incomprehensible about the arm’s specs as he walked towards one of the floor length mirrors. He stared at himself and touched his new metal arm, his fingers rubbing the smooth, bare shoulder. “I feel like- could I have something? Here?”

Tony stopped rattling out details and sat back for a moment. He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Want your sergeant stripes? Or Captain? Or I could spray on the SHIELD insignia. Fury would love that.”

Bucky let out a laugh. “No, that would be the worst,” he chuckled. There was a pause and he asked, “What about the shield?”

“I just said-”

“I mean, _the_ shield. Captain America’s shield.”

Tony was quiet for a moment, his lips twitched up into a sad smile.

“For you, I’ll see what I can do.”

-

Bucky left Stark Tower with a smile. Once he was in the driver’s seat of his car, he tossed his hoodie to one side and pulled up his left sleeve.

Looking down at his left shoulder, he could just make out the edges of the design painted on his arm, red, white and blue circles with a star right smack-dab in the middle. With a contented sigh, he let his sleeve drop and he started his car.

-

The look on Sam’s face was priceless when Bucky turned up for their next run, waving with a full metal arm.

Bucky let out a bit of a nervous laugh. He was wearing a black tank top, his arm on full display. He turned his left shoulder towards Sam, showing off the decal on his shoulder.

“So, what do you think?” Bucky asked.

“This is a fucking dream!” Sam shouted in reply as Bucky approached.

Bucky blinked and backed off, but there was a big entertained smile on his face.

“Sorry, that’s just the coolest thing ever,” Sam chucked. He held out one hand and asked, “Can I?”

Bucky cocked his head to one side and gave him an odd look, but eventually he put out his arm an Sam clasped his hand. It tickled a bit as his friend touched the metal panelling.

“This is amazing,” Sam uttered as he worshiped Bucky’s arm. “What does it feel like?”

“Like you’re holding my hand and stroking my arm. It’s really weird. Please stop.”

Sam let out a uproar of a laugh. He let go of Bucky arm and raised his hands, yielding. All the while, Bucky was smirking at him.

Sam went a bit red, though it must have been very red considering it would have been hard to tell otherwise. He rubbed the back of his neck and laughed nervously. “Sorry, man.”

Shaking his head, Bucky just laughed. “It’s fine. Ready to run?”

“Yeah. I’ll just hope all that metal weighs you down some. Maybe you’ll only get to lap me a half dozen times today.”

They started the jog, both laughing and joking on their first quarter lap until Bucky picked up his pace and left Sam in his dust as usual.

Over the course of the following year, Bucky settled into his new life with his new friends and his new arm. When everything went down in New York, he was there in a flash to help. He dealt with matters and when he got back to D.C. Sam was in his apartment to greet him with a hero’s welcome that involved beer and pizza.

“Hey, so I know you’ve had some weird experience with them, but I’ve started SHIELD training,” Sam said one day a few weeks later. They were sitting on the steps overlooking the Reflecting Pool again at the end of a run.

Sam looked up at Bucky with an expression that read, ‘don’t be mad’.

“I just want to be there to help next time all hell breaks loose, you know?”

Bucky wanted nothing to do with SHIELD He’d done his duty during the war, and when the Avengers needed him to help save New York from an alien invasion, he’d done what he could there too, but only at Tony’s request. He owed Stark for giving him a new arm. However, Bucky refused to step into SHIELD headquarters. He would not be doing their mercenary work.

Still, he smiled at Sam and said simply,

“I think you should go for it.”

-

Sam’s admission about joining SHIELD seemed to have been a forerunner for something much more worrying.

The next day SHIELD director Nicholas Fury, was pronounced dead after what the media was simply calling a ‘road incident’. The papers covered it like it was a tragic motor accident, but after hearing the vague report, that somehow just didn’t sit right with Bucky.

Later that same evening, a package arrived at Bucky’s front doorstep, there was no return address or stamp. It had been delivered by hand, but no one was there when Bucky answered the door.

Inside the small box was a large flash drive with a SHIELD logo on it. Bucky lifted the thing out of the box and found a note underneath. It read: Qui Vive Snow Soldier. LOTRFOTR32M.

It was some kind of code. Bucky knew the French, but it was practically gibberish with the English. The first part didn’t make any sense and the second was just random latters and numbers as far as he was concerned.

Maybe Sam would have some idea about what was going on. If he really had started SHIELD training, maybe he knew something about their coding system.

The next morning they were supposed to go on a run, but Sam got a surprise call in to work. The made a plan to meet up at the Mall later in the afternoon, so around that time Bucky wandered over to the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian.

He had been there before. Many times in fact. He walked down into that showcase of bravery and patriotism. His chest ached at the reminder of the high cost. He didn’t know why he did this to himself.

Bucky had never called himself ‘Captain America’, though all the papers had during the war. Even after his death, Steve remained the face of the Captain. After all Steve’s campaigning for war bonds during the war, he really was the only face people identified with Captain America. All of Bucky’s deeds were also Steve’s deeds. Bucky remained at his side, present but less well-known along with the rest of the Howling Commandoes that were famed as the original Captain’s final mission and the beginning of the end. Steve was praised for giving his life to save the men that went on to win the war.

One wall of the museum was covered with newspaper headlines:

_Steve Rogers: All-American super soldier._

_Captain America dies singlehandedly rescuing 300 fellow soldiers._

_Their Captain: the first to die in the line of duty._

_Sergeant James Barnes, taking the Nazi’s to task._

_Look out Hitler, here’s our new Captain America!_

Bucky appreciated that his face wasn’t as easily recognized as Steve’s. He was never one for wearing the stars and stripes uniform and with his dark and roguish features, he didn’t have that all-American-dream-boy face the 1940s media loved to promote. However, he was still well known as the leader of the Howling commandoes and he still went to the exhibit disguised in baggy clothes, a pair of large frame glasses. That didn’t stop small children from looking up at him with awe while he walked through the exhibit with their parents. Hoping to stop an incident, Bucky looked down at one child and pressed a finger to his lips.

The child nodded, but then frowned. He was staring past Bucky at something going on behind him.

Bucky turned just in time to see six heavily armed men storm through the exhibit’s main door. Bucky half-recognized their uniforms marking them out as high ranking SHIELD agents.

But what was a STRIKE team doing at a museum?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Bucky’s hipster](https://38.media.tumblr.com/47dfb123fb1d15686ce70fbca0621304/tumblr_n4ugazX9Bv1sc349ho1_500.png) “disguise”.
> 
> Come find me on [Tumblr](http://itsanidiom.tumblr.com/)


	3. An Old Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING this is where things start to get dark. There is a very non-con scene in this chapter. I marked where it starts and ends with (XXX) so anyone who wants to skip the actual detail can with CTRL/Command+F. 
> 
> Skipping it shouldn’t take away from the plot too much, but the resulting trauma will play in through the rest of the story.

Agent Rollins pressed a finger to the device in his ear as his team stormed past him into the Smithsonian’s exhibit hall. There was only one other exit in the large room, and he could see Rumlow had it covered. With Rollins working from the front and Rumlow moving through the back, it didn’t take long for the STRIKE team to herd the scared and confused crowd of visitors into the most open room in the exhibit, in front of the stage with the display costumes.

“What are we thinking?” Rollins asked, speaking into the receiver attached to his collar once everyone was there. His angular face drew up into a sneer as he surveyed the room.

Across the crowded hall, he had a clear view of Rumlow over the panicking heads of the citizens. The man touched his ear then craned his neck slightly to speak into the mic at his collar.

“Get them all to shut the fuck up and then grab a dozen. Pierce said women and children,” Rumlow replied. He gestured with one hand, signalling for Rollins to hurry the fuck up and get started.

Rollins nodded in response and lowered his hand from his ear. He dropped his larger firearm to his side letting it hang from a strap on his shoulder while he pulled out a separate gun. It only fired blanks, but made a noise loud enough to shut the crowd up when he fired it into the air a few times. If someone decided that the fact that the one gun wasn’t loaded meant that the other was probably just for show, well, they would be in for a bloody surprise.

“Everyone,” Rollins shouted above the noise, “We are government officials! Trust that this is for your own safety!”

Rollins’ announcement did very little to calm the people, especially after the gunshots. When the STRIKE team started pulling mothers and their children out of the crowds, the people got even more anxious, but anyone who spoke was greeted with a barrel aimed at their face. That only happened twice and no one spoke after.

The little boy who had recognized Bucky was still standing nearby. He looked around frantically for his mother and when he couldn’t find her, he grabbed onto Bucky’s sweater sleeve. Trying to hide behind him, the boy pressed his head into Bucky’s elbow and squeezed his eyes tight shut.

Bucky looked down at the child sympathetically before turning a dark gaze onto the men. He knew immediately something was very wrong. While the STRIKE team might have been wearing SHIELD gear, it was obvious that whatever they had planed was not a government operation.

Being at the front of the crowd, Bucky heard the Agent called Rollins talking to someone else over some kind of hidden radio. Rollins was trying to calm whoever it was, but as he did he gestured for his team to move even faster. They grabbed more and more people, a dozen by the time they were finished, then the men at the back were heading with the others towards the front doors.

The sound of gunshots could be heard ringing out as the men opened the soundproof doors to exit. Something was going on outside.

“Rollins, grab one more kid and hurry it up, we’ve got trouble!” Rumlow said in a hushed tone as he past.

Bucky realized then what was happening. These agents were taking hostages. Why, he did not know, but whatever it was couldn’t be anything good.

“Can’t the Soldier handle it?” Rollins retorted with a sneer.

“Just hurry it up,” Rumlow hissed.

Rollins grunted an affirmative and did a final quick scope of the crowed. His eyes met Bucky’s and then dropped, catching sight of the tiny hand that was clenched around Bucky’s sleeve. Bucky sucked in a deep breath as the man approached him.

Rollins reached out and grabbed the kids arm, yanking him from where he hid behind Bucky. The boy let out a fear filled cry, but Rollins didn’t get far with him before he was stopped. Bucky grabbed the man’s wrist in a firm grip.

“Hey! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” he demanded, not caring how cliché it sounded.

Rollins focus shifted to glare at Bucky. With a odious smirk, he let go of the kid’s arm. The child, with big grateful eyes, moved further back into the crowd, to find his mom. Bucky watched him disappear into the crowd safely, before he turned back to Rollins.

Bucky released the man’s wrist, but just as he did, Rollins snatched his hand and, in one swift movement, pinned it to his back.

Caught off guard, Bucky let out a cry as his right arm was pulled back so hard the force very nearly dislocated his shoulder.

“You wanna be a tough guy?” Rollins hissed right into his ear, leaning over him a bit more provocatively than was necessary. Bucky heard a clicking sound, like a weapon being unsheathed behind him. He turned his head to look, but before he had a chance to see, his body was jolted by the volts of electricity suddenly surging through his system.

He fell to the ground, blinking uncontrollably as his vision went in and out of focus. The last thing he remembered was catching a glimpse of the electric baton and hearing were screamed of startled citizens and the scarred man’s voice shouting a single order.

“Take him.”

-

Bucky woke to the sound of heavy footsteps echoing down a stone hall. He opened his eyes and found himself in a dank cell. They must have been underground. It was freezing and there were no windows in the tiny, enclosed space.

There were small lockers everywhere and a single big steal door, like one from a vault. Its deadbolts started to click loudly before the door opened with a metallic groan.

Bucky scrambled to his feet as the door started to slide towards him. He went to push himself off the ground, but found that his left arm wasn’t moving properly. It still worked but the electric current Rollins had sent through him had slowed down the tech’s reaction time. Clenching it into a fist felt like he was trying to close his hand over a piece of drying clay.

Two men entered the room, Bucky recognized them as Rumlow and Rollins, the STRIKE team leaders from back at the museum.

“Right, who brought in the fucking twink?” Rumlow demanded as he caught sight of Bucky where he lay prone on the floor.

Rollins shrugged, but admitted to nothing. He stood behind Rumlow and when the other man turned to him, he just kept looking straight ahead.

Rumlow scoffed and shook his head.

“Figures. Didn’t even have to ask, did I?” he muttered to himself under his breath.

In that moment, Bucky realized that no one from this branch of SHIELD seemed to recognize him. He wasn’t sure if it was his ‘disguise’ or the context, but he was keen to keep his anonymity.

Rumlow crossed his arms over his chest and let out a low laugh. He circled around Bucky, sneering at him like he wasn’t even human. Bucky made no move to fight when the man knocked off his glasses with a resounding slap to the side of his face.

Bucky was jerked to away and nearly fell when his arm didn’t move fast enough to catch him. He held his face while Rumlow snorted out a laugh before turning back to Rollins.

“I said women and children, what are we supposed to do with this one?”

“I thought we could have some fun,” Rollins replied with a smarmy nonchalance that was almost terrifying.

“We’re on the job, HYDRA’s not paying us to have fun,” Rumlow scoffed. However, he turned and looked down at Bucky again with a contemplative expression.

“The Soldier’s been a good boy, though. He dealt with those SHIELD special agents pretty well this morning,” Rumlow stated finally after the odd pause. “Let’s give him a little reward, shall we?”

Rollins let out an exasperated sigh, but he relented. “Sure, give the dog a bone.”

“Jealous?”

“Fuck off, Rumlow.”

Bucky watched the two men banter as they left, but he knew they’d be back.

And they were. Before Bucky even got a chance to start planning his escape, Rollins and Rumlow’s voices were coming down the hall again, echoing noisily with the sound of footsteps - many more than just those of two people.

The door opened again. Rumlow and Rollins were accompanied by a group of five armed men. They followed behind their commanders, all surrounding a large figure who stood, secured between them. The figure seemed to be clouded by a tense air, as if a vicious storm followed over him as he moved.

The men moved aside then and allowed the man to walk between them. He did, approaching Bucky, his dark eyes void of emotion. A blank slate of a human being.

Bucky sucked in a sharp breath.

He knew those eyes, though they were sleepless, dark and surrounded by sunken, shadowed skin when they had once been light like a summer sky and full of hope. He knew that face, though it was bore an unfamiliarly haunted expression and bearded with scruff a shade darker than his blond hair when it had once been smiling and childlike. He knew this rough looking man, though he was dead when he had once been alive.

“Steve?” Bucky whispered only loud enough for the two of them to hear.

“Who the hell is Steve?” the Soldier replied. He spoke quietly as well, but only because his voice was rough from disuse.

Bucky’s lips parted, but he was left speechless. No one had taken any notice of their brief exchange, but Bucky was a bit to preoccupied to be thankful for that.

There was no recognition. Nothing. The Soldier just looked at Bucky with cold narrow eyes. Steve was long gone, or buried somewhere deep, and it was very likely that this man, this Soldier, would kill Bucky the minute he was told to do so without even a blink.

The Soldier confirmed this suspicion when his gaze shifted to Rumlow and he asked, "What do you want me to do to him?”

Rumlow could already see the Soldier reaching back for one of his knives. He stopped him with a raised hand and a throaty chuckle.

"No. None of that. I don't even want you to rough him up... not too bad anyways." Rumlow walked past the Soldier, coming to a stop behind him. "You've been a good boy recently, keeping those SHIELD agents off our backs today at the museum." Rumlow leaned over him and murmured into his ear, "He's a little something for you. A reward.”

Rollins’ lips twitched up into a smirk and he added, “Fuck him. Have fun. That's an order, Soldier."

There was a brief pause as the Soldier almost seemed to hesitate, but the lapse was over before anyone in the room noticed. With barely a blink, he stepped towards Bucky, moving like an animal stalking its prey. Bucky swallowed, knowing he was about to be eaten alive.

(XXX)

The Soldier didn’t give Bucky a chance to run or fight. With one hand fisted in Bucky’s sweater, he pulled the slighter man up off the ground to him, shoving one hand over the front of his pants. He felt Bucky out through the fabric of his pants, holding his other arm tight around Bucky’s rips as the other man struggled against him.

Bucky let out a agonized gasp at the painful friction as the Soldier squeezed him a bit too tight. He beat his good hand against his assailant’s chest, trying to push him away, but the man was a mountain.

Bucky wanted to be sick. He wanted to hate it. But his body didn’t.

The Soldier’s touch was so familiar. Even though his body was changed, Bucky knew Steve’s hands, his lips, his face. He had changed so much after whatever had been done to him and yet in Bucky’s mind he was still Steve.

But that was just the physical.

The Soldier obviously had no awareness of ‘Steve’. Everything he did to Bucky was not out of some deeply buried and long forgotten desire. It was because he was just following orders.

“Come on, Soldier! Fuck him!” Someone shouted, laughing boisterously in the background.

The Soldier was rough, more than Steve could ever be, especially before the serum they’d given him. Steve would had never manhandled Bucky, no matter how much he’d asked.

Bucky squeezed the Soldier’s shoulders and moaned through clenched teeth. He was disgusted with himself, but all he could do was arch into those hands that he had missed so much. He was turned around suddenly, pulled back against the Soldier’s broad chest. A large hand slipped roughly down inside pants.

Bucky choked on a gasp. Facing away from Steve, he could see Rumlow and his men watching with sick leers on their faces. He shut his eyes firmly to block them out, but the knowledge of the voyeurs’ existence made his skin itch and crawl.

The Soldier looked up from the smooth line of Bucky’s neck to the men grouped by the door. He gaged their reactions to see if he was following their orders as they wanted.

He saw everything that Bucky did and more. He saw a twisted anticipation for something in Rumlow’s eyes. He saw the way Rollins was trying to be subtle as he jerked himself through the front of his uniform pants. He saw how the other men were leering with expressions of either pleasure or disgust. He saw everything and he knew he was doing a satisfactory job.

So he kept going.

In that brief interlude, Bucky tried to pull Steve off of him. He gripped the wrist of the hand that was down his pants with his left hand. He was able squeeze so hard that the Soldier frowned, but he didn’t say anything about it to the others and his hand stayed put, fondling and molesting the most sensitive places on Bucky’s body.

Bucky leaned his head back against the Soldier’s shoulder, staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes as a thousand different emotions and sensation coursed through him.

“What a fucking slut,” Rollins muttered, sneering lecherously down at Bucky.

Rumlow spat. He seemed disappointed that he wasn’t going to get to get a show. He wanted to see this young man be utterly humiliated, destroyed, but It was no fun if the kid enjoyed it.

“We have work to do,” Rumlow muttered. “Let’s give the man some privacy.”

His men laughed and filed out of the room. Some, like Rollins, were more hesitant than others to leave. They had been hoping to have a go as well.

The door closed behind them, the sound echoing through the small concrete bunker.

“Steve,” Bucky gasped out. “They’re gone. Steve, you can stop.”

The Soldier just frowned and pressed Bucky back against him more firmly with a hand around his neck. Bucky panted heavily. He turned his head at an awkward angle, meeting Steve’s eyes.

The Soldier froze. He held Bucky gaze for a long while, not moving. His grip on Bucky’s throat loosened and his hand slipped out of his pants.

“Steve?”

Any hope that had swelled in Bucky’s chest was crushed seconds later.

The Soldier released him only to push him forward onto the ground. Surprised. Bucky didn’t have time to check his balance and he fell, landing heavily. His chin and cheek scraped painfully against the concrete as his left arm failed underneath him, still malfunctioning.

Bucky groaned against the cool stone. He only had a second to turn onto his back before the Soldier landed on the ground behind him.

The Soldier hit the floor with a loud thud, not seeming to feel the pain of the concrete against his knees. He was at Bucky’s feet, but grabbed a thigh in one big hand and pulled Bucky in close. Soon, the Soldier was  kneeling between Bucky’s spread legs.

Bucky sat up immediately ready to fight him off. He put one hand on the Soldier’s neck, digging his thumb into the dip over his collarbone. He was set to snap the bone, but when their eyes met, he stopped.

Familiar blue irises stared lifelessly back at him and Bucky knew he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t hurt Steve.

Bucky grit his teeth as he felt the Soldier peel his hand off his neck and press him back down to the floor with ease. He recoiled and closed his eyes wondering how far he was going to have to let this go as he felt his clothes being yanked off his body.

Bucky was numb. He barely felt the cold stone on his back as he lay there watching his clothes be tossed aside. Soon he was naked. The underground room was freezing, but he couldn’t feel it.

He clutched his metal arm to his chest, not liking how heavy it felt as he moved it. He could just feel the pressure of the metal on his skin and of the wires where they attached with the nerves in his left shoulder, but that was all he could feel.

The Soldier eyed the arm like it was a weapon. He knew it could well be. He’d felt the power that arm had before when Bucky tried pull his hand away from him. But Bucky didn’t lash out with it.

The Soldier’s eyes traced the naked body laid out before him. The man didn’t struggle.

That didn’t seem... usual.

Eventually the Soldier’s gaze returned to that arm. He leaned forward and reached out for it.

Bucky could still feel sensation there. He felt the Soldier’s thumb running over the design on his left shoulder. There was a light of recognition in the Soldier’s eyes, but it came and went, fading fast.

The Soldier’s expression darkened. He had his orders.

Bucky had little in the way of preparation. The Soldier was rough and he was fast. Slick with saliva, the Soldiers fingers burned as he slid them in and out at a vicious pace. Bucky knew there was no way he could ever be ready for what was to come next.

A tear roll down the side of his face at the Soldier’s first thrust. It wasn’t from pain Bucky realized, no, his body was to void to feel anything akin to pain. The tear was drawn from the knowledge that all he wanted was to kiss the man looming above him. He wanted to pull him close and touch his face and whisper how happy he was to see him... alive.

But not like this.

Bucky grit his teeth. The familiarity was too much. His boy tingled at the thought of Steve, his legs even tightening around the Soldier’s hips as he thrust. A slew of curses flew from his lips as the Soldier pounded into him with Steve’s cock.

"Fuck, Steve, ah!" he sobbed.

“Shut up,” the Soldier bit out. He didn’t know why, but Bucky’s voice grated on something inside his mind. It made his head throb with a raw ache. In an effort to drive it away, the Soldier thrust harder. Any pleasure he should have been deriving from the experience was lost on him. He was anesthetized to pain, to pleasure, to everything, except the new strange throbbing in his head.

As the Soldier moved through him, Bucky closed his eyes and let flames swallow him up. Each of the Soldier’s thrusts was a rough burn followed by an explosion of physical pleasure.

He had to be a masochist. There was no other explanation for why it felt so good while everything else felt dead.

An ache built up inside. Bucky arched up off the floor, his back scraping the rough ground. He came with a startled cry that the Soldier took as a threat.

Reacting to the sound, he immediately had one hand was around Bucky's neck. Squeezing just hard enough to cut off Bucky's air flow.

Bucky was still shuddering from the sensation of having an orgasm torn out of him, but he grabbed the hand around his neck with his left and clenched Steve's wrist. His arm used the last vestiges of power left in it to pull that hand away.

The Soldier seemed confused until he remembered the metal arm had a concealed strength. He grit his teeth and pulled Bucky's wrists up, locking them together over his head.

As the artificial calm induced by his climax wore off, Bucky struggled, but he couldn't fight back. His new arm was all but useless held down above his head.

"Don't move," the Soldier’s voice was so calm, Bucky couldn't stand it. Whoever had convinced him to do this, whoever was controlling him, they were sick.

Even as the Soldier was huffing above him heavily letting out a panting with each deep thrust. He grit his teeth, but other than that his expression stayed almost neutral. When he finally came, it was with an audible exhale, but nothing else.

The Soldier pulled out and Bucky was left on the cold floor. His hips hurt, and slickness was streaming down the insides of his thighs. He rolled onto his side and just tried to breath for a second.

(XXX)

Bucky’s mind raced as he looked up at the man who had just accosted him. He stared at his old friend as he got to his feet and tucked himself back into his pants.

The fact that he was alive still had Bucky reeling.

“What happened to you, Steve?” he whispered, breath coming in shaky puffs.

The Soldier turned to him and Bucky covered his eyes with one arm; it made him nauseous to see Steve as he was then.

The Soldier scoffed and shook his head. His face pinched, looking at Bucky like he was insane.

“Who the hell is Steve?” he repeated only this time his voice was softer. He seemed genuinely curious.

Bucky peaked one eye out from under his arm. He opened his mouth to respond, but then suddenly the cell door opened again. One of the STRIKE team members burst in, looking like he’d been through hell.

“Soldier! We’re under attack! They need you to secure the front lobby now! Let’s go!”

The Soldier cast Bucky one more look and then he left without another word. The door closed forcefully behind him and the old deadbolts clicked into place.

Bucky lay inside that locked cell naked. For a short while that felt like an eternity, he just stared up at the ceiling. He blinked, but he couldn’t think. His mind couldn’t focus enough to think about anything at all.

He rolled onto his hands and knees and pulled himself up off the ground laboriously as he only had one working hand. Bucky dressed himself just as slowly. His back was scratched from being dragged along the concrete and it hurt of slip his shirt on over the scars, but he knew they would heal quickly enough. The numb was starting to fade and it was soon replaced by a sore chill.

Bucky couldn’t see his sweater. He looked around and eventually found it bundled up against the wall of lockers. As he snatched it off the floor, something fell out of the pocket. Confused, Bucky leaned down to pick it up. 

He’d almost forgotten.

Held in his palm was the note he had been planning to ask Sam about. The paper was wrapped around the flash drive. Bucky still didn’t know what it was, but he was eternally glad that Rollins hadn’t been suspicious enough to frisk him after they brought him in.

Bucky thought of all the events that had led up to that moment. Fury’s death, the attack at the museum, his kidnapping... Steve. Eventough he didn’t know what was on it, it was a priority to keep the flash drive out of HYDRA’s hands.

Bucky shoved the drive and the note back into his pocket and zipped up his sweater. With a heavy heart, he stood in the middle of the room and looked down at the place where he’d been lying minutes before and just stared. His eyes were glued to the floor and again his mind wandered into the void until his peripheral vision started to go black.

Bucky shook himself. He didn’t have time to dwell on anything, he needed to escape. If he could escape, he could figure out what was going on, find a way to return and maybe, just maybe, he could rescue Steve from whoever it was that had turned him into a... monster.

With that in mind, Bucky stirred his determination. He went to the door and tried the handle though he already knew it would be locked. It was worth a shot.

The door would not be his way out, so he started scouring the Spartan room. The place was some kind of bank vault, nigh impenetrable. There was no escaping through the walls, not with his arm in the state that it was in, but there was an airshaft high  on the ceiling above him.

And nothing to reach it with.

Bucky was about to attempt pulling down the lockers that were affixed to the walls to create a platform when an explosion forced him to cover his ears and back up against a wall. The cell door burst open again, but this time though, the entire thing came off its hinges. The heavy metal caved in and the entire thing moved a foot forward before falling and sliding across the floor.

Bucky was fortunate he was pressed against the wall as he could very well have been taken out by that blast. He looked to the newly opened threshold, cautious, ready this time to try to fight off whoever came through.

“James?”

Bucky let out a relieved sigh. Even through the dust and debris from the semtex explosion, he’d recognize that shade of red hair anywhere.

“Natasha?”

Natasha approached Bucky slowly. Her expression was warped in an uncertain frown. Wetting her lip, Natasha looked over her shoulder, making sure she had time before she asked,

“What are you doing here?”

Bucky ran one hand through his hair. “I guess I was kidnapped.”

“You guess?”

He realized that even though he was technically being rescued, he wasn’t sure if he could trust Natasha. She was with SHIELD after all.

“Yeah, by one of SHIELD’s STRIKE teams.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “They were talking about being on HYDRA’s payroll. What the hell is going on?”

Natasha looked over her shoulder once more. Distantly, she could hear footsteps coming down the hall.

“No time. Simple answer. SHIELD has been compromised,” she replied, turning back to Bucky. “I’ll explain in detail later, but right now we need to leave. You’re not the only person who got kidnapped today and I need to get everyone to safety.”

Bucky was unsure of who to trust, but if Natasha was getting him out of that cell that was good enough for him.

“They took women and children. Twelve of them apart from me,” he said, helpfully.

“Twelve?”

Bucky nodded.

Pressing a device held inside her ear, Natasha quickly spoke into a receiver. “Okay, I’ve found them all. Time to head out.”

Bucky followed her down the hall, stepping over the writhing bodies of fallen STRIKE agents as they made their way towards a safe exit.

-

The front lobby was eventually secured. It was hard to do dealing with a bird man flying around above their heads with an automatic in each hand. He touched down briefly and in that space of time the Soldier got an opening. The Soldier ripped one of the man’s mechanical wings off and sent him hurtling through the front door.

Rumlow had run after him with a team, but by the time they got out of the lobby, all that was left of the man was the wing and the spray of broken glass from the door he’d broken through. The man himself was gone. It was only when Rollins radioed in that he realized the bird man had just been a diversion.

“We’ve run them off, but the hostages escaped with them out the back,” Rollins came through, sounding vaguely winded, but mainly pissed off.

“Damn it,” Rumlow hissed. He looked at the Soldier who had taken a seat against one of the old bank counters. He crouched down in front of the Soldier and tried to catch the man’s gaze, but Steve was staring straight forward as if looking into an abyss.

Rumlow chuckled to himself. “Looks like your boy toy’s a one night stand,” he guffawed, trying to lighten the mood and keep from shooting someone in the face.

“Thought you would have killed the bird man. It’s not like you to miss a mark, Snow,” Rumlow continued, scratching his chin. His saw the Soldier’s eyes briefly shift over to the mangled metal wing, but he didn’t say anything.

When Steve didn’t reply, Rumlow let out an exasperated sigh. He raised a steady hand and ran it through the Soldier’s tangled hair. He carded his fingers through blond hair slowly a few times like he was petting a dog before Steve seemed to snap out of his haze.

He smacked Rumlow’s hand away from him, not seeming to care that in doing so the man yanked his hair.

“Don’t touch me,” Steve hissed.

Rumlow froze, shocked for a moment, then he just shook his head and laughed. He sat next to Steve and side eyed him with a lecherous smirk turning the corner of his mouth.

“Come on, Snow. You used to like it.”

Steve continued staring straight ahead, pointedly ignoring Rumlow’s taunting.

That only made Rumlow push harder and he leaned into Steve’s space again.

“What’s changed, huh?”

Steve didn’t reply. Rumlow’s words were white noise in his mind. The only thing he could think about was the incident with the man in his cell.

“What’s changed?”

The Soldier was still and silent. That wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was that he eventually spoke up.

“I think- I knew him,” he murmured.

Rumlow jerked back, his shock outweighing any of the rage he’d been feeling before. “What did you just say?”

Steve stared Rumlow down then he looked away his eyes growing distant once more.

“I knew him,” he whispered, sounding more sure of himself.

Rumlow got up and took a step away from the Soldier, leaving him sitting alone in the middle of their wrecked lobby. Rumlow stopped a ways away before he pulled out his radio. He spoke into it, calmly as he could without taking his eyes off the Soldier.

“Rollins. Get Pierce on the line.”

-

The street across the empty field that surrounded the old decrepit bank was dark and empty save for the barely silhouetted outline of a single large black SHIELD vehicle.

Bucky was piled into the back along with the others that had been saved from the facility. They didn’t have the look of people who’d been rescued and they probably wouldn’t for a while, not until the fear and shock wore away. For all they knew, there was a STRIKE team following behind them, ready to snatch them all right back up again in a blink.

It would be some time before they were in the clear.

Until then Bucky just closed his eyes and tried to block out the sobbing and soft murmurs of the others. He pressed his head back against one of the blackout windows and tried not to think.

Just for a minute.

-

“What the hell is going on?”

Those were Alexander Pierce’s first words when he stepped over shattered glass into the tatter lobby of the bank that housed their underground base.

“We had a break in. I’m sorry, sir. The hostages were taken, ‘rescued’ I assume,” Rumlow handed Pierce a tablet with an incident report and the man snatched it from his hand, casting the thing the briefest of glances.

“Unacceptable. And where was our Soldier? Why didn’t you send him after these... vigilantes.”

Rumlow bit the inside of one cheek. “That’s why I called you in, sir.”

Pierce didn’t understand until they neared the end of the hall where HYDRA kept the Soldier in the old bank’s most secure vault.

“Sir, I would advise against going in,” one of the white coated engineers warned as Pierce came near. “He’s unstable. Erratic.”

As the man spoke, there was a loud shout from inside the room behind him followed by a crash. Then the noises stopped, only because a half dozen men suddenly had automatic weapons trained on the Soldier in the centre of the room.

Pierce let out an agitated sigh and glared at the engineer who still stood in his way. “Just let me through,” he snapped.

The man in the white coat hastily stepped aside.

Despite the mess and the man laying limp halfway across the room, Pierce approached the Soldier calmly.

“Mission report.” he ordered simply, taking up the unconscious man’s seat.

Steve stared ahead, his face blank, void of any sense of emotion. Even with so many people milling about, he felt like he was looking into nothingness. He could pick out little things, but nothing was salient. Nothing struck him as real anymore.

Except the man from the cell. The man he’d taken and fucked and ‘enjoyed’ because he’d been told to enjoy himself. Have fun, Rollins had ordered.

“Mission report, now!”

Steve shivered as he drew himself out of the abyss, forcing the dark memories away. He looked up to see Pierce sitting on one of the doctor’s chairs in front of him. When he looked away again, Pierce backhanded him across his face, but Steve hardly had the energy to give any reaction.

“Jesus, what did you do to him?” Pierce demanded, turning to Rumlow who was standing awkwardly behind him.

“Nothing. We thought we’d let him have some fun,” Rumlow tried, immediately kicking himself for using the exact same words he’d chastised Rollins for using only a few hours before.

“Again?” Pierce scoffed. “Who was it this time? Some young man you found when you were supposed to be kidnapping hostages?” He shook his head and muttered, “useless,” under his breath.

“He’s been good, we thought he deserved a reward.”

“Rewards are for children and dogs. He’s a Soldier, his reward should be a mission completed successfully. Since we now have no hostages, I’m going to say no one here is deserving of anything,” Pierce spat out. He turned back to Steve then and repeated, “Report,” one last time.

Steve looked into Pierce’s eyes, his distant gaze no longer seeming so far off.

“The man... in the cell. Who was he?”

“No one. Just some kid Rollins picked up off the street, now what happened with director Fury? Is he dead?”

“I- But... I knew him,” Steve whispered. He lowered his gaze, focusing the floor with a confused glance. “I knew him.”

“Who the hell did you put in his cell?” Pierce whispered harshly as the scientists got to work.

Rumlow let out a huff of a laugh, but it was cut short by the stern look Pierce shot in reply. Swallowing, Rumlow answered, “Just some twink. Rollins picked him out at the museum.”

“That’s not an answer. Who was he?”

“He-”

The Soldier’s brow creased. “He had a metal arm,” he state quietly.

All eyes were on the Soldier. Rumlow sucked in a breath.

"Metal arm?” Piece repeated slowly. He turned to glare at Rumlow. “How did you miss that?"

He turned back to Pierce stood at attention. “We’ll find the man, sir. We’ll deal with him.”

Shaking his head, Pierce got up from his seat in front of the Soldier.

“Don’t screw this up, Rumlow.”

Rumlow was still as Pierce walked by him. As he left, Pierce took one last look back towards their super soldier. All he was in that moment: just a distressed man in a chair. With a sigh, Pierce turned to his science team.

“Wipe him.”

The engineer looked at the doctors before turning back to Pierce with a frown. “He’s been out of cryo too long, I don’t think-”

Pierce held up a hand. He was loathe to repeat himself, but he did it anyway.

“Wipe him and start again.”

-  
Rumlow stormed down the hall, furious. The other members of STRIKE knew well enough to stay out of his way. Rollins was the only one who didn’t. He stood waiting at the end of the hall for the news on Pierce’s orders.

"So, how do you propose we start looking?" he asked when Rumlow told him what had happened.

Rumlow let out an angry huff. "You hear Snow. He has a metal arm, he couldn't be that hard to track down."

Rollins nodded. "I read about that new prosthetics tech. The kid must be friends with Tony Stark."

"Well, if that's the case maybe that wasn't such a bad choice by you after all."

-

“James.”

Bucky opened his eyes. He hadn’t even realized they’d stopped. He looked over at the open door to where Natasha was standing down on the road outside.

She nodded at him, gesturing that he hop out of the van before she addressed the women and children.      

“Agent Hill will be driving the rest of you to a safe location where you’ll be able to contact your families. Remain calm. You’ll all be home soon.”

There were quiet murmurs thanks from those left behind.

The vehicle pulled away, leaving Bucky and Natasha on the side of the road illuminated under a single lamp post.

Bucky looked around and realized that he’d been there before.

“This is Sam’s street,” he uttered, hinting at a question. What were they doing on Sam’s street, outside his house no less?

“Because I’m just an agent in training. I’m not on the registry yet and no one will find us here.”

Bucky looked to his right. Sam was there, fully geared up. He tore off his goggles and eyed Bucky shaking his head.

“What the hell were you doing in there, Bucky?” He almost sounded amused.

“I see that training’s going well.” Bucky replied, avoiding the question.

“Ha, yeah. Not good enough. Their psycho soldier, whatever he is, ripped my wing clean off.”

At the mention of the Soldier, Bucky grew tense. Natasha noticed his change of posture and moved to put a hand on his back.

“Hey, let’s get you inside,” she suggested.

“No.” Bucky shook his head, stepping back away from her. “How do I even know I can trust you.” He looked to Sam then, his eyes narrowing. “Either of you.”

Sam’s face dropped, saddened by his friend’s lack of faith in him.

“Hey, come on man.” He reached out to place a comforting hand on Bucky’s arm, but Bucky jerked away even further.

“Don’t touch-!” Bucky stopped, realizing Sam was only trying to help. “I’m sorry, I just want to go home.”

“You know you can’t,” Natasha said, as softly as she could.

“I know. I know. They’ll figure it out. They’ll find out who I am and when they do they’re really going to come looking for me and I just-" Bucky put his head in his hands and let out a heavy breath. “I didn’t want any part of this.”

"Try not to worry too much. Besides sort honorable mentions of your help with the Avengers initiative during the invasion in New York, SHIELD has made sure you stay out of the press spotlight."

"Thank you, but I don’t think that matters if SHIELD are the ones coming after me." Bucky glared at Natasha, suspicion weighing heavy in his glance. “I don’t want anything to do with SHIELD. Especially not now.”

"We're not the bad guys, Bucky," Sam interjected. “I don’t know what those STRIKE guys are pulling, but me and Natasha, we’re your friends.”

"I know that. I know, I just-" Bucky let out another frustrated breath. "I need to be alone for a while."

Sam and Natasha shared a glance.

“There’s a spare room in my place,” Sam said after a short while. “You’re more than welcome to it.”

“We need to debrief with agent Hill over the phone anyway,” Natasha added.

Bucky looked up at the starless sky. He took a deep breath and quietly said, “Alright.”

Sam nodded and was about to give Bucky a pat on the back, but remembering Bucky’s earlier outburst he pulled his hand away. Instead Sam stood back with Natasha, letting Bucky lead the way as the three of them started towards his small house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone not up on the whole Snow Soldier headcanon, picture Chris Evans from [Snowpiercer](http://junjihyun.tumblr.com/post/80499834185/im-not-a-leader).  That’s the image in my head here.
> 
> Come find me on [Tumblr](http://itsanidiom.tumblr.com/)


	4. The Morning After

The morning after passing out on Sam’s bed was surprisingly quiet. Feeling somehow unrested after a full nights sleep, Bucky woke and exited the spare room. Still walking on shaky legs, he stepped out and made his way down the short hall to find Sam and Natasha sitting at the small table in the kitchen. The two of them seemed to have finished their debrief and were speaking together in hushed voices. They were talking about him, Bucky knew. Since they didn’t notice his presence in the hall, he was able to pick up pieces of their discussion.

“How was he when you found him?” Sam asked. His tone was soft with concern. It was a voice that Bucky recognized from all the times he’d stopped by the VA and caught the end of one of the meetings for veterans with PTSD that Sam hosted.

Natasha let out a puff of air and shrugged. “I guess they’d roughed him up a bit, but he seemed fine. Up and about. He was looking for a way out of that cell when I blew the door.”

Her words did little to put Sam at ease. He pursed his lips. “I just feel like something happened. Something- I don’t know. Something bad.”

“Something bad?”

Placing both his elbows on the table, Sam rubbed his head and let out a sigh. “I really just don’t know. But I’ve seen that sort of reaction, when Bucky jumped away at being touched. I wonder if-”

Bucky coughed as he entered the room. Sam and Natasha leaned away from each other suddenly and turned to him with awkward caught expressions. Bucky greeted them, pretending he hadn’t heard half of their conversation. His simulated ignorance seemed to relax them a bit.

“Thanks for letting me use your spare room, Sam,” Bucky murmured.

Sam leaned back in his chair in an effort to look inconspicuous. He scratched the back of his neck and smiled.

“Yeah. No problem.”

Across from him, Natasha just shook her head. She refused to just sit back and pretend like everything was normal.

“James?”

Bucky shot Natasha a quick glance from where he had wandered over towards the fridge.

“Yeah,” he replied.

“I need to know, what happened back there last night?”

Bucky stared past her and then he squeezed his eyes shut tight.

“I don’t want to-”

“Well, just tell me how it happened,” Natasha cut in before he could finish. Sam cast her a disapproving look and she quickly added, “Nothing you’re not comfortable talking about, just how did the kidnapping happen?”

With a relenting sigh, Bucky nodded. He started recounting the days events. He mentioned the names he’d heard: Hydra. SHIELD. Rumlow. Rollins. Sam hadn’t met them, but Natasha’s face pinched, overwhelmed and disgusted by the STRIKE agents’ apparent betrayal of SHIELD. When Bucky got to the part where he woke up in the cell, his eyes went wide. He paused for a moment, remembering vividly.

“Then,” he said, more to himself than to either of the other two. “Steve,” he whispered.

Natasha frowned. “What?”

“Steve,” Sam was quick to pick up on who exactly Bucky was talking about. “Like... your Steve? Steve Rogers? What’s he got to do with any of this?”

“He was there. In that place. He-” Bucky stared straight ahead, still not sure if he believed it himself. Everything that had happened to him in that cell felt like it was becoming a blur. But one thing was for sure:

“He was alive.”

“Bucky, that’s impossible,” Sam retorted. “Steve died during the war, and even if he hadn’t that was still in the 1940s, he’d have to be like 90 years old by now. He just can’t-“

“Боже мой,” Natasha cut Sam off, muttering thorough the gaps in her fingers as she covered her mouth with one hand. She whispered something to herself in Russian, her eyes wide and withdrawn.

Bucky turned his focus to her then. “Natasha?”

“The Soldier,” she whispered. English didn’t clear up the vague response so Natasha explained, “Hydra called him Snow Soldier. He’s an assassin,” Taking a deep breath, she added, “He’s the one who killed Nick Fury.”

“So what’s this have to do with Steve?” Sam demanded.

“Steve is-” Bucky couldn’t finish. He let his body fall back against the wall. While he stood, lost in thought, Natasha continued to enlighten them.

“He’s been around for as long as I can remember. Even back when I was still working for Russia. He’s a ghost. Soviets called him the Snow Soldier because they keep him on ice and only take him out of cryosleep when they need a mission completed. I never recognized him as Captain America, but I’ve encountered him before and he left his mark.” Natasha pulled up her shirt to display the scar from a bullet wound etched across her hip. Even after she let her shirt fall, she rubbed that place self-consciously. “The Soviets must have found his body in the ruins of that Hydra base at the end of the war when they swept in, but now it seems Hydra’s got him back.”

Bucky slid down the wall onto the floor, his head in his hands. He heard the squeak of a chair being pushed back and then there was a presence in front of him.

Sam was kneeling close. He put a steady hand on Bucky’s shoulder. A vague sense of relief washed over him when Bucky didn’t shove him back.

“It was Steve who beat you up back there, wasn’t it? He’s the- the Snow Soldier. Is this why you’ve been acting so odd after ‘Tasha got you out? Didn’t he... know you? Recognise you?”

Bucky took a deep shaky breath. He looked up into Sam’s earnest eyes and shook his head, no.

“It’s no surprise,” Natasha murmured. “I’ve heard the Soldier is basically a machine. Programmable. He will follow any order given by the one’s he’s being compelled to be loyal to.”

Bucky closed his eyes trying to block out everything. He didn’t want to believe it. “I saved Steve so many times, but that time, that one time-” he choked back his emotions, his throat clicking as swallowed to hold in a sob “-that one time I just couldn’t. And it’s my fault. Yesterday, if I hadn’t gotten capture by STRIKE, then they would have made him- if I’d just-” Bucky looked up, staring up towards the ceiling with red rimmed eyes. “I wish it was me. Not Steve. Anyone, but Steve.”

“Hey, there was nothing you could have done.” Sam put a firm hand on Bucky’s cheek and looked him in the eye. “What happened to him, it’s not your fault. Hell, I think he would be glad that he saved you from whatever they did to turn him into- that Snow Soldier. It’s okay, Bucky. He’s not your Steve.”

Bucky disagreed, shaking his head vehemently. “No. No, it isn’t. He is. He’s still Steve. Or- or he might be. Somewhere in there.” He pulled at his hair and clenched his eyes tight shut. “I need to get him out of there. I have to rescue him. I have to.”

Sam bit his lips and turned to Natasha for a second. She gave Sam a nod and he turned right back to Bucky.

“When do we start?”

-

“The first thing we need to ask ourselves is, what was SHIELD doing with a Soviet assassin?” Sam said. The three of them were sitting at the kitchen table then formulating a plan of action.

“Well we know Hydra is involved somehow and they’re must be trying to take down SHIELD from the inside. But how deep are they embedded. Is it just the STRIKE branch?”

Natasha shook her head. “The only person left to ask is Pierce, but he’s blacklisted me. Told everyone at HQ that I’m a suspect. Apparently I had something to do with Fury’s death even though I was the one chased the guy who did it over a half a block before he just up and vanished.” She let out an annoyed sigh. “Like I said, he’s a ghost.”

Sam leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. He cast Bucky a side-ways glance.

“You got anything?” he asked, desperately.

Having turned down SHIELD training, Bucky was pretty far out of the loop. He shook his head and, with a sigh, shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.

Odd.

There was something there. It’s presence caused Bucky to frown then he closed his eyes, annoyed with himself for having forgotten for a second time.

“Wait, I might actually have something.”

Bucky pulled the small flash drive and the folded paper note out of his pocket. He placed the two objects on the table between them and Natasha was quick to snatch up the note.

“This is Fury’s handwriting. Where did you get this?”

“It just showed up at my front door,” Bucky said with a shrug. “Hand delivered. I had actually thought you’d left it.”

Seeming to accept that answer, Natasha nodded and turned her attention back to the note.

“LOTRFOTR32M?” she read out loud.

“Is it code?” Bucky asked. “I thought you might understand.”

Natasha just looked at the note, shaking her head. But nearby, Sam’s brain was running hot.

“LOTRFOTR?” Sam drawled, scratching his chin. “Lord of the Rings? Fellowship of the Ring?”

Bucky still wasn’t sure what Sam was talking about, but Natasha looked over at him with wide, confused eyes.

“32M. M could be Minutes? 32 minutes into the movie?” She said. “Is there a line or a scene or-?”

Sam snapped his fingers. He cleared his throat and murmured, “Keep it secret. Keep it safe,” in a deep gravelly voice. “Gandalf, you guys!”

Bucky didn’t even try to pretend he understood.

“Why would Fury-? No. Better question. Why do you know that?” Natasha asked, genuinely curious.

“Cause it’s a really good movie?” Sam replied, looking at her like it was the most obvious answer in the world.

Natasha conceded that point with an agreeable shrug, but still took a moment to mutter something that sounded exasperated in Russian under her breath.

“Come on, you liked ‘The Lord of the Rings’, didn’t you, Bucky?”

Bucky looked down at the floor guiltily and muttered, “I haven’t watched any of the movies you suggested yet.”

“Well, they’re books, too.”

Bucky’s brows creased in an awkward expression. He blinked slowly. “Um, Gandalf. I remember that name from when ‘The Hobbit’ was published? Were there more books?” He scratched the back of his head. “I think they were a bit after my time.”

Sam opened his mouth to protest, but he did the calculations in his head and instead let out a surprised, “Huh.”

“You’re really old,” both agents surmised.

“Yeah.” Bucky wasn’t going to argue with him there.

“Okay, nerds,” Natasha snapped her fingers. “Someone want to grab me a laptop. If this really is from Fury, I want to find out what’s on this thing that’s so crazy important.” As Sam got up to grab his computer, Natasha held the SHIELD issue flash drive up to her face an stared at the familiar device.

“I have a sneaking suspicion that I was the one who retrieved this data,” she murmured to herself, shaking the drive like it was a box of Tic Tacs.

Bucky eyed her narrowly from across the table. “Then shouldn’t you know what’s on it?”

“Haven’t got a clue.” Natasha shrugged, tossing the drive and catching it in one hand and she leaned back in her chair. “That’s SHIELD for you.”

Bucky was just shaking his head when Sam returned with his laptop. Sam set the computer down in front of Natasha and she immediately got to work.

A few minutes into typing away, hacking the drive’s security Natasha let out a short, “Uh oh.”

Sam, who had been drifting off slightly given how late they’d been up the night before, jerked awake. “Uh oh? What’s ‘uh oh’?”

“’Uh oh’ is this thing has a track on it. The minute I plugged it in, SHIELD had our position.” Natasha grimaced. “I got a origin location of this drive and its data though. I’ll write out the coordinates, but then we need to go because a STRIKE team is going to be making a house call in about 8 minutes.”

“Damn. We need to get out of here. We’ll take my car. Bring the flash drive.”

Bucky stood slowly, feeling like everything was happening very fast around him. “But, Sam, your house,” he said, his brow arching sympathetically.

Sam shook his head and laughed. “Let’s just hope us not being here means they leave my stuff alone, shall we?”

-

It was well into afternoon of the next day by the time they reached the location. They’d taken turns driving and napping, but they were all exhausted. None of them had gotten a good nights rest.

“This is the place,” Natasha announced as she hopped out of Sam’s car. She was looking between the rusty gate ahead of them and her phone. “It looks like an old military base?”

“Camp Lehigh,” Sam read out loud. “This place looks like it hasn’t been operational since-”

“The 40s,” Bucky finished, walking past them. “This is where Steve and I were trained before we were shipped out to the UK.”

The three of them entered the Camp and began searching the grounds. It wasn’t hard to locate the odd building out. Munitions regulations being what they were, a newer looking building that typically housed them sitting right in the middle of the base was a shiny beacon that something funny was going on.

The group pulled open the door and walked inside. What they found was not a munitions store, but the front room of an office. Many of the furnishings were from the fifties and sixties, suggesting that the office had been operational more recently than the rest of the camp. An official looking emblem painted across the far wall that they all recognized.

It seemed that they had stumbled upon what seemed to be the first branch of SHIELD headquarters.

“Everything here, apart from me and Sam, is like a million years old,” Natasha commented, shooting Bucky a little wink when he glared at her.

Bucky just shook his head in reply. He was about to retort when Sam cut in.

“Hey, guys?” He had his face pressed up against a wall and was peering into a long crack in its surface when the other two approached.

“There’s something back there.” Sam stepped away and looked to Bucky with a cheeky grin. “You care to do the honours, bionic man?”

Bucky looked down at his arm. He tried to move it, but the damage from before hadn’t worn off. With a sigh, he realized he was probably going need Stark to take a look at it.

“I’m not going to be of much help?” Bucky replied. He raised his hand to demonstrate how slowly the metal panels that made up his arm were moving. Some didn’t move at all and others were grating on each other painfully, scratching the metal.

“Jesus,” Sam murmured. “They worked you over pretty good, didn’t that.”

Bucky didn’t respond.

“Right. Well, ‘Tashsa, give me a hand with this.”

Upon hearing her name, Natasha hopped to. She pressed up to the wall alongside Sam and Bucky with his one good hand in the crack. Together the three of them were able to pry the secret door open. The lights flickered on to reveal a short corridor that directed to an elevator shaft at the other end of the hall.

“Huh,” Sam grunted.

“Why would a secret base need a secret base?” Natasha wondered aloud.

“SHIELD,” Bucky responded with a huff. He was the first to move with a determined stride into the hall, but Sam and Natasha followed close behind. The elevator doors opened and they all stepped inside and rode the thing down underground. It was only a moment before the doors opened again.

They stepped out onto a grated floor. The small strip the stepped out onto was the only space in the room not taken up colossal boxes filled with reels upon reels of what had to be magnetic recording tape.

“Is this entire place... a computer?” Sam asked, spinning to get a good look around the entire room. “This room must be like 250 square feet!”

Bucky approached what had to be the main system, apprehensively looking over the dusty monitors. Nothing was from the modern era, apart from a single USB port. With bright blue LED strips lining its edges, it stood out like a sore thumb.

“Natasha.”

“Miles ahead of you,” Natasha replied. She pulled out the drive again and pressed it into the port. The groups stood back expectantly, but, for a second, nothing happened.

Then, they all jumped as the entire room kicked into action. The reels in their boxes started moving, winding and unwinding in the system. Every hard drive in the room was whirring away, but still nothing seemed to be happening until the computer screen lit up.

Natasha grinned at it. “Do you want to play a game?” she whispered as a dull green glow filled the room. The joke made Sam laugh and Bucky roll his eyes. When a black prompt screen appeared asking if they wanted to initiate the system, Natasha was quick to lean forward and type in a single command: YES.

The camera atop the central monitor suddenly started turning. Its tiny lens focused on each of their faces and as it did a weedy voice declared their names in turn. “James Buchanan Barnes. Natalia Alianovna Romanova. Samuel Thomas Wilson.”

“Man, my mom doesn’t even calls me Samuel,” Sam said to himself as he scratched his chin and chuckled at the automated voice.

Not in a laughing spirit, Bucky turned to Natasha and demanded, “What is this?”

“Some kind of pre-recorded message? I don’t-” before Natasha could finish that voice returned, erupting from the loud speaker with an amused titter.

“Well, well, well,” an all too familiar voice enunciated.

Bucky’s body shivered from a mélange of torturous memories he would have rather stayed long forgotten.

“You,” he hissed, vehemently. “You’re that little creep that followed Red Skull around. The Nazi scientist.”

“I have a name, Sargent Barnes.” Zola replied, tutting even in his apparent amusement. “The creature should not be so rude to its maker.”

Bucky practically growled and that only made Zola giggle manically over the loudspeaker.

“From what I’ve seen, you didn’t stop once I got away. What the hell did you do to Steve?”

“Ah yes. Captain Rogers. You know,” Zola said with a cruel laugh. “It wasn’t suppose to be him. That was a real happy surprise for us, his body rising from the ashes like a phoenix. All I had to work with before was you.”

Bucky’s eyes went wide as more memories flooded back. The second echo brought with it disturbing vividness.

Hydra. Zola. Steve. The inferno.

“Ha! That’s right. But you suspected already, didn’t you?” Zola’s weedy voice grated on them all. “Your body took my serum well, but your ‘Captain America’, he was-“ Zola sighed happily “-perfection.”

With an angry shout, Bucky punched a hole straight through the centre screen. Zola’s face flickered away, but came back a second later on one of the smaller screens.

The man was a roach.

Sam held Bucky back, trying to calm him down and keep him from breaking anything else until Natasha could talk Zola into giving up some much needed information.

“What are you?” she demanded calmly.

With a tittering smarmy laugh, Zola explained. He told them of how he’d been hired after the war, a Swiss genius, an engineer, a scientist, everything SHIELD needed. But he wasn’t SHIELD, Zola was forever loyal to Hydra. So slowly over the years he had infiltrated, and even when his body had died due to disease, his consciousness lived on in that space.

“So you see, SHIELD was deceived,” Zola said. “And we serve non but the Master. Hail Hydra.”

“Enough!” Bucky shouted. He broke away from Sam and slammed his hands down on the desktop. “What is Hydra planning?!”

The camera that acted as Zola’s eyes turned slowly to Bucky. The grainy image on the computer seemed to be smiling.

“Our plan is to make the world need us. Our plan is to strike fear into the hearts of the people. Fear is control. Control is power.”

“Hey, man,” Sam cut in suddenly, “If you’re still working for HYDRA, why would you tell us any of this? Is it just some good old self-absorbed bad guy talk?”

“Oh no, mister Wilson. This was not mere narcissism. I was - how do you say - buying time.”

An image appeared on one of the screens. It was security video showing several SHIELD vehicles pulling up to the gate. A man dressed all in black shoulder a rocket launcher and used it to turn Sam’s car into a pile of burning rubble.

“Ops,” Zola giggled. “Perhaps I should have warned you sooner?”

Bucky reached into the metal desktop with his left hand and pulled a cord. Zola’s image wavered then faded and soon the entire system went into shut down as power was deprived from the machine.

As it died, the audio let out a final drone of “Hail Hydra,” that melted into a static blur.

There was a moment of silence in the room. Bucky was breathing heavily, Sam and Natasha just watched him warily.

“Well, I see you arm is fully operational again,” Sam noted casually.

Bucky rolled his shoulder and squeezed his fist. The reaction time was indeed, thankfully, back to normal. Right on time too, considering they’d apparently just been ambushed by software.

Natasha watched Bucky move his arm and gave a short nod. “Good, then you can help us deal with this mess. There’s STRIKE team headed our way. I counted six men.”

“I saw Steve with them,” Bucky added, staring at the now black screen that had once displayed the Soldier’s picture.

“So let’s just round up your six and play like there’s a dozen,” Sam muttered. He was still pissed at the Soldier for ruining his flight suit, among other things. 

Natasha looked around. “We’re boxed in down here, let’s make our way outside before their right on top of us. We can figure out how we’re get out of this trap alive from there”

“Right behind you, ‘Tasha.”

-

The elevator ride was quick, but when Sam, Natasha and Bucky got back up to the ground floor, the STRIKE team was already just outside the building. As they approached the front door, they could hear Rumlow shouting out orders to his team on the other side.

The group quickly realized that their only option was to head further into the building so the three of them ran for the door at the other side of that first room. It thankful wasn’t locked and led them into the back end of the bunker. They ran down the twisting system of halls, but it was harder to find a back door than they had first perceived and the STRIKE team was hot on their trail.

There were footsteps coming fast down the hall behind them and loud voices calling out orders. A gun shot sounded just as they turned a corner and Sam let out a shout.

“Oh sh-! I’m hit! Damn it!” He cried, but he was still moving, limping only slightly.

Natasha was quick to check him over as they keep on down the hall.

“It’s just grazed your calf,” she told him.

“JUST grazed,” Sam huffed out as she wrapped her around his back to help him hobble along. “Great! No big deal then,” he bit out.

Bucky could hardly believe Sam and Natasha could joke around at a time like that. He let the two of them go on slightly ahead of him as he turned to watch their backs. Two of the STRIKE team came around the corner then, their guns aimed down the hall.

Without thinking Bucky ran back down the hall and confronted them. He made a serpentine path towards them, jumping off the wall and using the momentum and his metal fist to knock the first man out cold. The second was floored when Bucky recovered and spun, elbowing him in the temple.

The hall was still echoing with the sounds of gunfire when the two STRIKE team agents fell to the ground at Bucky’s feet.

Bucky loomed over them, panting heavily from the exertion. There were footsteps coming down the opposite hall. Their noise drew his attention and he looked up.

Standing at the opposite end of the was Steve. He was dressed all in black, like a phantom, a ghost come back to haunt Bucky’s waking hours - as if his dreams hadn’t been enough.

“James?” Natasha called out.

“It’s him,” Bucky said, loud enough for Sam and Natasha to hear. Natasha could hold her own, but Sam was in no condition to fight. So taking a deep breath, Bucky called out, “I’ll hold him off. You two go! Natasha, Get Sam out of here!”

“Bucky,” Sam protested.

“Just go!”

Only once Sam and Natasha had disappeared around another corner did Bucky turn back to the other end of the Hall.

The Soldier was backed up by another two men from the STRIKE team which left only Rollins and Rumlow unaccounted for. They were most likely guarding the perimeter to make sure no one escaped while their underlings did the dirty work.

Down the hall, the Soldier’s eyes went narrow as he glared at Bucky. After everything that had happened the day before, Bucky thought that he might see some recognition, but whatever there was left of Steve remained trapped somewhere inside the vessel called the Snow Soldier and, even after all the Soldier had done to him, even he didn’t seem to recognize Bucky.

What had been done to him?

 _“You three go around the back and stop the other two,”_ The Soldier said, nodding to his men. _“He’s mine.”_

Bucky didn’t understand Steve’s words as he was speaking to his team in Russian, but when the other two left them alone in the hall, Bucky knew it wasn’t anything good.

Steve holstered his gun and pulled out a knife.

 _So this is how it’s going to be_. Those words run though Bucky’s mind as he sucked in a sharp breath.

As he slowly let that breath out, their confrontation began.

Steve stepped towards him with intent and Bucky was quick to move forward in response. They met in the centre of the hall where Steve was first to lash out. He swung with heavy swipes of his knife, but Bucky was too quick. Despite his recent lack of training, Bucky’s prime reflexes were still enough to dodge. He moved around Steve, keeping up a defensive strategy.

Steve was rapidly getting tired of Bucky’s evasive tactics. He kicked out with one knee, and caught Bucky off-guard. He then pushed the smaller man back up against the wall.

Bucky winced as his spin hit the concrete. Steve was right on top of him. His knife was inches from Bucky’s throat, only stopped because Bucky was fast enough to grab the blade in his left hand. It bent, warped by his metal grasp, becoming useless.

Steve growled and threw the knife away. He instead pressed his forearm against Bucky’s throat.

Bucky pulled at Steve’s wrist with his metal hand, getting it just far enough to give himself a bit of air. He tried to kick Steve’s legs out from under him, but his efforts barely knocked the Soldier off balance. Steve was quick to correct his stance afterwards, he pressed his hips forward, trapping Bucky against the wall with the weight of his entire body.

Steve’s eyes were focused on Bucky’s left arm, glaring darkly at the weapon.

“Steve,” Bucky rasped. The Soldier reacted to the name, but Bucky wasn’t sure if the acknowledgment meant anything or if the Soldier was just reacting to the sound of his voice.

Steve met Bucky’s gaze with narrow eyes, but his arm let up for the barest moment.

Bucky got Steve’s arm off his neck long enough to gasp.

“Steve, please. You know me,” he said.

The Soldier grit his teeth. He frowned and shook his head like he was hearing voices. Then he bit out,

“No I don’t!”

Before Bucky could react, the Soldier readjusted his grip and threw Bucky down the hall. He burst through a door at the other end and didn’t stop till he hit the back wall inside the new room. Bucky’s body barely had time to start healing before Steve came at him again.

The Soldier stepped over the rubble that used to be the door and past the threshold into the room. He towered over Bucky then dropped to his knees. With no effort, he tore the smaller man up off the floor by his shirt collar and pressed Bucky back against the wall.

The Soldier pulled a fist back to strike. Then there was a paused. He just stared down at Bucky’s cringing form, waiting to take a hit.

When the strike didn’t come, Bucky slowly he opened his eyes.

“Steve?” he whispered, tentatively.

He was taken aback by the kiss. It was sudden and rough and it have come out of nowhere. Steve’s rough beard burned his cheeks as he pressed in closer to Bucky.

At fist Bucky froze as everything that had happened the day before suddenly rushed back to him. Then he tried to push Steve away. His fingers clenched in the dark fabric that made up Steve’s coat, pushing and shoving Steve off even as the other man continued to smash their mouths together. Soon, with his hands fisted against Steve’s chest, Bucky wasn’t sure if he was pushing anymore.

He melted into the kiss, moaning into Steve’s mouth. It was happening again and Bucky was scared of how much he wanted it. He tried to put of a struggle, but his body just wouldn’t listen. To all intents and purposes, he was trapped.

Then suddenly, Steve pushed Bucky away from him, slamming him back into the wall with a hand around his neck. The Soldier’s brow had creased into a deep frown. He could see things in his mind’s eye. He knew this man, the perspective felt off though. Steve remembered being... shorter? Having to look up into this man’s face, pull him close with a firm hand around the back of his neck.

Steve touched his own lips. Had they kissed before?

For a while Steve just stared at Bucky. His breathing started coming in angry pants and then his eyes grew dark.

The Snow Soldier was taking over again.

Bucky knew better than to stick around and wait for that to happen. He got out from under the Soldier while he was distracted and, after nearly tripping over the broken door, he made a run for it.

There was an exit that led outside through the back of the building in the direction Sam and Natasha had gone before. If Bucky could just make it there they would be outside, not in such dangerously close quarters.

Bucky ran down the twisting halls, back the way he’d been. He could hear Steve’s footsteps following close behind. As he burst though the door and ran into the empty courtyard, he turned his head just in time to see Steve reaching for a gun holstered to his side. He drew the weapon and Bucky’s eyes went wide.

Bucky stopped and faced his would-be killer. There was no escape for him.

Upon seeing his expression, Steve hesitated, but that hesitation only lasted a moment. After a blink, he aimed at Bucky, but wasn’t given the opportunity to shoot. His previous moments hesitation was his undoing.

A SHIELD vehicle drove between them, seeming to have come out of nowhere. Two side doors slid open. On one side, Sam pulled Bucky into the vehicle while on there other, Natasha leaned out carrying a an automatic rifle in hand. She grinned, aiming right down the barrel towards the Snow Soldier.

Natasha pulled the trigger and a spray of bullets rained down.

Steve ran for cover behind a concrete wall, dogging the hail of bullets dug into the ground around his feet. His lightening reflexes saved him from being perforated.

“Let’s go!” Sam shouted once Bucky was securely seated beside him.

Natasha slid her door shut and they drove off, leaving the rest of the STRIKE team in their dust.

“Glad you could join us, Barnes,” agent Hill said as they broke through the fence.

“Agent Hill,” Bucky greeted. He shot a quick questioning glance between Sam and Natasha and the nods he received in reply told him that Hill could be trusted.

“Thanks for the lift.”

“Oh, I did you one better than a lift,” agent Hill chuckled without taking her eyes off the road.

“She really did.” Natasha nodded towards the space behind their seats.

There was a man laying incapacitated on the floor of the vehicle. Bucky looked down his nose at him, tilting his head to one side with some recognition. It seemed that not only had Sam and Natasha managed to get away with some help from agent Hill, but they’d also captured one of the STRIKE team members.

It was Rumlow’s right hand man, Jack Rollins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really have any notes this chapter so...
> 
> Your Kudos tell Zola to get fucked! XD
> 
> Come find me on [Tumblr](http://itsanidiom.tumblr.com/)


	5. The Last Mission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now the epic climax~

Thankfully they were too quick to be followed as they made their escape from Camp Lehigh. After only a few hours of driving, their SHIELD vehicle pulled up to a base that had been secreted in the expansive tunnels of an old dam. A man greeted them at the gate and, upon noticing Sam’s leg wound, he immediately helped him into the underground tunnel ahead of Hill, Bucky and Natasha. The group walked through to the back of base and into an infirmary.

The first thing that Bucky noticed when the entered the makeshift hospice was that there was already a man lying there in a white sheeted bed, bandaged and broken.

Bucky froze when he saw the man and cocked his head to one side. For a minute he just stared, slightly taken aback.

Of course it was Nick Fury, alive and well.

“Doesn’t anyone actually die around here or does SHIELD just enjoy mentally torturing people,” Bucky muttered to himself, walking past the SHIELD director to sit with Sam while the doctor worked on his injured leg.

“Well, it’s good to know everyone is sympathetic to my not being dead,” Fury said in response with a narrow gaze.

Agent Hill sighed calmly. “Right,” she cut in, “before we get to all the ‘welcome back from the dead’s, I need to inform you that we have agent Jack Rollins locked in the back of the car.”

“Rollins?” Fury’s brow creased. He tried to sit up in the bed, but was immediately forced to lean back as pain overwhelmed him. “He’s with Hydra?”

“Him and the entire STRIKE team, sir,” Natasha informed Fury once the shock at seeing him alive had worn off. Fury’s death had been hard on her, and it was obvious that she was holding back the response to having been lied to.

“Have you questioned Rollins, yet?” Fury demanded calmly though his rage was obvious in his tone.

“He’s still unconscious,” agent Hill replied. “I’ll interview him as soon as he comes to.”

“Why, wait. He’s probably still got one of those damn Tasers on him. Let’s just wake him up,” Bucky snapped.

“Buck-“ Sam said, trying to pacify him, but there was no point. Bucky was already on his feet. He left the infirmary abruptly and made his way back down the tunnel at a swift walking pace. His stride was enough to keep him ahead of Natasha as she came jogging up behind him. She only just caught up with Bucky as they reached the gate.

“James!”

“Don’t try to stop me, Natasha,” Bucky hissed.

Natasha let out an exasperated sigh. She got in front of Bucky and turned to face him, blocking his path. They were in the middle of the tunnel, the light at the end only a few meters ahead of them.

“Maria is going to deal with him. That’s her job and in my opinion-”

“I don’t need your two-cents on this,” Bucky said, cutting Natasha off midsentence. “You want me to sit back and let SHIELD deal with this. Tough. I don’t trust SHIELD to deal with anything anymore.” He moved to walk past Natasha again, but she was having none of it.

The move was fast. In no time flat, Bucky found himself pinned to the wall of the tunnel. His back hit the concrete and he shut his eyes. His face pinched into a pained expression. Natasha’s forearm was pressed across his chest, from his shoulder and over his ribs. Even though she wasn’t using enough pressure to really hurt him, suddenly he suddenly couldn’t breath.

Natasha had been expecting a fight, but Bucky’s reaction surprised her more than anything he’d done so far. He went completely rigid and didn’t even move to push her off his chest. Bucky’s lack of response unnerved Natasha so much that she backed off right away.

“James?”

The sound of Natasha’s voice calling his name snapped Bucky from the dark place in his own mind where he’d been reliving the past day’s horrific events.

“Sorry,” Bucky whispered. His eyes were glued to the concrete floor for a second before he shook his head and closed them altogether.

“No, I’m-“ Natasha took a step away from him, removing herself from his personal space. “Never mind. Let’s go back, alright? We’ll get everything from agent Hill once she’s interviewed Rollins.”

Bucky took a deep breath and simply nodded. He didn’t voice any complaints when Natasha walked ahead of him, leading him back the way they came.

-

Hours later saw Natasha and Sam waiting with Bucky outside the room wherein agent Hill was interrogating Rollins. Without force, of course. SHIELD may have been compromised, but they were still holding themselves up to the wall with red tape and ethics guidelines. Even though Agent Hill was hardly one to follow the rules to a T, she was barely able to get a peep out of Rollins. All she got was the barest of information regarding a new Hydra weapon that she had somehow managed to get Rollins to brag about.

“They’ve got a biological weapon. Some kind of bomb. I have a feeling that there’s a plot to set it off any day now, but that’s all I got,” she informed the others who had been waiting outside.

“Biological weapon?” Bucky repeated with a frown. “Is that like, mustard gas?”

“That was a chemical weapon,” Sam clarified. “Biological weapon is like what the Europeans did to the natives with small pox blankets.”

Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “So this bomb, it contains diseases?”

Agent Hill nodded. Her face turning grave. “He seemed to suggest something like that. I couldn’t get anymore out of him apart from the fact that, apparently, we’re all screwed.”

“Let us try him,” Natasha said, turning to Sam and Bucky for confirmation. Bucky was definitely up to taking on the task, and Sam, as usual, would follow Bucky’s lead.

Agent Hill looked at the three of them and let out an exhausted breath.

“He’s all yours.”

-

Jack Rollins looked up when the door opened again. “Well, look who have here,” he muttered when Bucky led the other agents into the room. “If it isn’t the guy who likes to play hero. Should have known you weren’t just some fucking twink.”

Bucky didn’t respond. He wouldn’t waste his time exchanging insults with Rollins; the man was hardly worth his time. However, Bucky mentally thanked his friends for not remarking on what Rollins’ had said, though they did exchange an odd glance behind Bucky’s back.

Rollins smirked and chuckled quietly to himself. “I already said all I had to say to that bitch earlier.”

“Well, now it’s time you prove to us that you’re not just some gunsel,” Bucky replied quickly.

Rollins let out a half-nervous laugh. “What the fuck is a gunsel?”

“Old person talk,” Sam replied, side-eyeing Bucky with a raised brow. “Let me translate, we’re going to interrogate you and find out if your apparent rank meant anything.”

“You were pretty high up on the STRIKE totem pole,” Natasha clarified. “You can’t tell us you don’t know what Hydra’s planning?”

Rollins looked at her and smirked. “I don’t know what Hydra’s planning,” he drawled smarmily.

“Bullshit!” Bucky slammed his hands down on the table. The dent on the metal table told everyone in the room that anger was getting the best of him.

Natasha put out one arm, gesturing silently for him to calm down. She then turned back to Rollins. “What does Hydra have planned for this weapon you were talking about?” She demanded.

Rollins just let out a laugh and shook his head.

“Talk, Rollins,” Natasha snapped.

“Now, why would I do that?”

“Because,” Sam started, pacing around to Rollins’ side of the table, “as bad as that getting the third degree from agent Hill was, it’s nothing compared to what my friend here is thinking of doing to you right now.”

He nodded over his shoulder towards Bucky.

Rollins looked at the dark expression on the man face. He swallowed, recalling what exactly he and his team had put Bucky through. It was easy to imagine the horrific revenge Bucky was intent on enacting.

“Yeah, he held your old Hydra buddies personally responsible for his best friend death, but now it turns out Steve’s alive only you guys have been torturing him for the worst part of seventy years and using him like a drudge. Now, he’s dealt with Nazis so you know the whole ‘just following orders’ spiel isn’t going to work.” Sam shrugged his shoulders dramatically. “So, you can talk or not. But if not, ‘Tasha and I are just gonna give you two some alone time.”

Rollins mind reeled at the thought of ‘alone time’. He shivered, remembering that Rumlow had given a similar order when they’d left Bucky alone with the Soldier days earlier.

“Fine,” Rollins muttered. “The weapon is inside a bomb big enough to wipe out the capitol, infect the entire east coast,” he admitted finally. “The explosion will distract everyone from the real threat that’ll be clinging to the blast debris. They won’t even notice the disease until it’s too widespread to quarantine. It won’t take long for it to spread worldwide.”

“Where is it?” Bucky demanded. “Where is the bomb?!”

“The National Mall,” Rollins finally confessed with a heavy exhale. “Underneath the World War Two Memorial.”

“The World War Two Memorial? How did they think that was appropriate?” Natasha muttered.

“Messed up,” Sam agreed. He glared down at Rollins. “You’re telling us that HYDRA has a toxic bomb ready to blow hidden underground somewhere?”

“If the disease spreads, it has the potential to kill everyone? What’s the point,” Bucky hissed.

“HYDRA has stocked up on a vaccination,” Rollins took a deep breath. “Once everyone is infected, we’ll chose who gets the cure.”

“That’s sick.”

“That’s order.”

“Shut the hell up, man,” Sam spat.

Bucky shook his head and interrupted the angry back-and-forth. “What about Steve? Where are you keeping him?” he demanded.

“Stev-? Oh,” Rollins chuckled. “Right, your boyfriend. Yeah, when that bomb goes off he’ll be right down there with it. Hydra doesn’t need any loose ends. I think they want to burry him once and for all.”

There was an electronic whirring noise as Bucky clenched his metal hand into a tight fist. He placed his fist on the table and leaned over getting right in Rollins' face.

"I'd like to see them try."

-

“So, What’s the plan?” Sam asked as the door closed behind them, locking Rollins in the concrete bunker that had served as their interrogation room.

Bucky had been slightly distracted by his own thoughts. When Sam spoke he frowned for a moment before replying simply, “We stop this bomb.”

“Yeah!” Sam agreed heartily. “I don’t know what sort of disease that thing is going to release, but I do not want any Walking Dead zombie outbreak shit to go down. Not on my watch.”

“Walking dead zombie?” Bucky repeated with a frown. “Is that another reference to something.”

“You really need to watch those box sets I lent you, man.”

“Let’s work on saving the world first, boys. How about we do that,” Natasha interjected with a raised brow. “And can I just say, while ‘stop this bomb’ is a great goal it’s not really a very solid plan.”

“Let’s start basic then,” Bucky said as they stepped away from the interrogation room and moved down the hall as a group. “What are our resources?”

“We have a bunker in this hideout filled with weapons and ammunition,” Natasha replied quickly. “Enough to turn us into a three man army.”

“But if the three of us walk in guns blazing, Hydra is going to set off that bomb ahead of schedule,” Bucky noted.

“Well, if we keep an eye on the guards upstairs, you could sneak underground and figure out how to stop that bomb,” Sam added. “If they notice you, me and ‘Tasha could keep them off your back so that you don’t get pinned down.”

“So we stop this bomb and then what happened? Alexander Pierce? The STRIKE teams? What about them and the untold others Hydra has on their payroll?” Bucky asked, stopping halfway down the hall and turning to them with his arms crossed over his chest.

Sam met Bucky’s angry gaze with a nervous look, while Natasha just returned it with a fierce glare of her own.

She spoke firmly. “Once we find this bomb we’ll have all the evidence we’ll need to start an inquiry into Pierce’s activities at SHIELD.”

“An inquiry isn’t good enough,” Bucky snapped back in reply.

“Well, as far as I can see, our priority right now is shutting down that bomb.” Natasha simply shrugged. “Everything else will just have to wait.”

Bucky let out a heavy breath, but he didn’t disagree.

“I’ll run ahead and brief Fury on the plan. You two should start getting ready and I’ll meet you back at the gate.” Sam left them with a short salute and jogged down the hall back towards the infirmary.

Once Sam was gone, that left Bucky and Natasha standing in the middle of the hall together. The silence filling the space between them was palpable. Natasha pressed her tongue to the backs of her gritted teeth before forcing herself to break it.

“Look, James. I know this isn’t just about SHIELD and Hydra and politics.” She took a deep breath and decided to risk adding, “This is about Steve. It’s personal for you.”

Bucky all but flinched. His arms dropped to his sides and he took a step back away from Natasha.

“James.” The sympathetic tone to Natasha’s voice was one Bucky hardly recognized. He hadn’t heard it from her before. It drew his attention back up immediately.

“You shouldn’t just let whatever happened boil up inside you,” Natasha whispered. “Trust me about stuff like this. You should talk about it. Clean the wound, before it festers and infects your entire body.”

At her words, Bucky’s face went blank. He stared over Natasha’s head, not looking at her, or reacting in any way to her presence. Still as the grave, he just stood there letting his mind slip into the void.

His flat, lifelessness in his gaze didn’t go unnoticed.

“James. What happened back there?” Natasha asked again.

Bucky snapped out of his trance. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. He raised them up and ran them through his hair, burring his face in his palms. After a moment, when he moved his hands away, his eyes were reddened. Bucky wasn’t crying, but there was a heavy pressure built up in his throat strangling him with emotions. He sucked in a deep breath and shook tears away before they could roll down his cheeks.

Eventually, he let out a pained laugh that came out sounding more like a sob.

“It’s what Rollins said, isn’t it?” he said, shaking his head. “I still don’t know what the fuck a twink is.”

Natasha’s expression remained stoic, but it killed her to see Bucky’s attempt at brushing off whatever it was that had happened.

“Look, it’s not my place to force you to talk about anything. But just know that you can trust me.”

After another deep breath, Bucky conceded.

“It wasn’t Steve,” he whispered after a time. “It wasn’t Steve’s fault. What they did to him- What they made him do- It wasn’t him.”

Natasha already knew what they’d done to Steve, and she didn’t need ask what it was that they had made him do to Bucky. From everything she had gathered in the time since she’d rescued Bucky from that HYDRA base, she already knew.

“The worst thing about what they made him do was that part of me... part of me liked it.” Bucky looked up, his red rimmed eyes meeting Natasha’s gaze. “Is that sick?”

Natasha shook her hear. No.

Giving an unconvinced shake of his head, Bucky walked backwards and pressed his back to a wall before sliding down to the floor. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

Natasha crouched down in front of him. Quickly, she took his hands in hers, removing them slowly and gently from his eyes so that she could meet his gaze again.

“You know none of this is your fault,” she said. “If you can see that Steve was forced to do this to you, that it wasn’t his fault, is it really so hard to see that you were as much the victim in that situation as you believe he was?”

Bucky bit his lips and nodded solemnly. He sniffed back his tears and carded his fingers through his hair once more.

“It still hurts,” he said to himself not really meaning for her to hear.

“I know.” Natasha said in a voice that was barely loud enough for him to hear. She then stood and placed her hands on her hips. “We’re going to stop Hydra and save Steve.”

Bucky nodded and then looked thoughtfully down towards the floor. There was silence all down the hall. After a time, Bucky sighed and spoke up again.

“Tasha,” he said, his voice quiet and soft. “Don’t tell Sam, okay?”

A blink was all that betrayed Natasha’s emotions. She inhaled deeply before nodding. The dark moment passed as she forced a smile.

“Come on.” Natasha cocked her head towards their equipment bunker. “We have some Nazi hunting to do.”

Natasha held out a hand to help Bucky stand. With only a moment’s hesitation, he took it and picked himself up off the ground.

-

They gathered their supplies and met up with Sam and agent Hill at the base’s entrance. It barely took a few minutes of research to find out that there was an event being held at the World War II monument the next day. Many soldiers, ex-servicemen and a small group of world leaders from the security counsel had agreed to be present. Alexander Piece had arranged the event but had sadly been called away on business to California. It was sudden, but only to those who knew what was going called it was it really was. Suspicious.

“Why would the head of SHIELD not just reschedule the meeting in California?” Agent Hill muttered to herself as she drove them towards the National Mall. The streets were busy, but with all the extra security their armoured vehicle went completely unnoticed.

They stopped at a light and agent Hill turned her head to look back at them. “What’s so important that Pierce has to fly off the night before a big event?” she wondered aloud.

“Escaping a blast zone,” Bucky replied simply. “To me it’s all the proof we need that he’s guilty of something.”

“When actually we see the bomb, we’ll know for sure,” Natasha cut in.

“Yeah, I mean, for all we know Rollins is sending us on a wild goose chase,” Sam mumbled. He was a bit put out since he would not have his wings on their mission. The Snow Soldier had ripped one of them clean off his jet pack. What’s a falcon without its wings?

“We can only hope he’s too stupid to come up with that,” Natasha replied.

Bucky pressed his lips thoughtfully. “I’m pretty sure he told us the truth because he was under the impression that there’s nothing we can do in time to stop it.”

“Typical super villain narcissism.”

Bucky cast Sam as sideways glance, shaking his head slowly.

They arrived at the mall and quickly hooped out of the van. Agent Hill drove away to their pick up location leaving them staring up at the Washington Monument. There was security all over the place, but with their weapons carefully concealed they were able to blend in with the large crowds of people heading towards the event at the World War II Memorial. Apparently the Iron Patriot had been scheduled to do a demonstration and that got entire families excited to come out.

“We need to get these people out of here,” Bucky hissed as they walked through the crowd, disguised in civilian clothes.

“You heard Rollins, if there is a bomb, the blast zone it’s going to cover most if not all of the city.” Sam looked around sadly. “There’s nowhere safe for them to go. Not fast enough.”

Bucky let out a heavy breath. He nodded and looked straight ahead, keeping his mind on their goal. They couldn’t get the people to safety, all they could do was stop them bomb.

They had their mission.

“Radio check,” Natasha said as the three of them spread out.

During their debrief, Fury had given them access to some old SHIELD data that showed confidential blueprints of the National Mall. There were many underground tunnels built all through the park including one bomb shelter just underneath the World War II Memorial. They’d all agreed that if what Rollins had said was true, that was where they would find the bomb.

So they split up.

Bucky headed towards the park ranger’s station located between the World War II Memorial and the Washington Monument. The blueprints had indicated there was a set of tunnels under the station that would lead to the bomb shelter.

While he made his way down there, Natasha and Sam set out to make sure no one up above caught on to their plans. There were STRIKE agents all over the park and the minute Sam and Natasha saw any of them start looking like they’d caught on, sounding a silent alarm or heading towards the ranger’s station, their job was to take them down quietly.

On the other side of the park, Bucky had reached the tunnel’s entrance – am old disused gate covered by nature and yet much of that overgrowth seemed to have been cut back quite recently. If that wasn’t enough clue that Bucky was in the right place, the guards were a dead give away.

There were two STRIKE agents standing guard at the gate and it wasn’t too hard to surprise them. A blow to the head knocked the first man unconscious. The second tried to draw his weapon, but a kick to the stomach had him doubling over, dropping the gun to the ground. Bucky smacked his metal hand against the second man’s temple and he collapsed near his follow agent.

“I’m at the entrance,” Bucky radioed in to Sam and Natasha. “Took care of two sentries at the door, heading down now. Still all clear for you guys?” When he received an ‘all clear’ from both Sam and Natasha, Bucky ended the transmission and continued moving forward.

He took the keys off one of the guards and unlocked the door. It led to a set of steps that in turn led down into winding tunnels. There were more guards along the way, but only about half a dozen who were guarding various different access points.

There was a reason they’d sent Bucky down. He was stealthy, always had been. He snuck up behind one guard, choking her quietly until she collapsed down unconscious. The next guard saw him coming and unfortunately for him that meant Bucky had to rush and his head was getting smashed between the wall and Bucky’s metal arm. He wasn’t dead, but his brain was probably bruised a bit.

Bucky continued down the hall, taking the guards out one by one. He was nearing the end of his journey when Bucky heard a voice over his radio.

“James,” There was a bit of static since he was underground, but Natasha’s speech was clear enough. “They’re on to us. They didn’t get a call in from some of the agents guarding the tunnel. I intercepted their orders, the count down is on. We’ve only got a few minutes until the end of the Colonel Rhodes’ Iron Patriot show then this place blows. Have you found the bomb yet?”

“I’m coming up to some sort of room up ahead.” Bucky’s pace sped up.

I was the bomb shelter, though it had been repurposed for exactly the opposite of its original use. As Bucky entered the large stony room, he could see a large glowing cylinder in the center. The object lit the room with a dull blue-green light. It almost reminded Bucky of one of Stark’s reactors, only his tech never had so many superfluous wires or a large red numbered clock counting down from approximately 9 and a half minutes.

“Natasha, I think I found it!” Bucky stepped towards the machine and pulled out a device that agent Hill had given him. It was supposed to shut down the machine without triggering any fail-safes or auto-detonation protocols programmed into the machine. The device was the size of a cellphone and when placed on the machine, it only require a few commands to trigger full shutdown.

Bucky placed the device on the flat surface above the countdown clock and was about to input the first command when a force jerked him backwards. He was thrown back and sent sliding across the polished floor. His back hit the heavy metal door he’d just come through and it slammed shut.

Bucky groaned and tried to regain his composure. When he looked up, he saw a figure standing between him and the bomb. His eyes were a blur, but soon his vision cleared. He stared and Steve stared back at him.

This was it.

Bucky looked away and took a deep shuddering breath. He picked himself up off the ground and stood facing Steve. The tension in the air between was palpable as Bucky’s determined gaze met Steve’s fierce, but perceptibly empty stare.

“I’m not going to fight you, Steve, but if you don’t get out of my way, a lot of people are going to die and I can’t let that happen.” Bucky swallowed. “That’s my mission.”

“I have orders to kill you,” Steve replied without hesitation though his voice seemed rough from disuse.

“You’re my mission.”

Bucky’s jaw clenched and a deep frown creased his brow. He stepped forward to pass Steve, but as expected he was attacked him immediately.

Steve’s arm lashed out and he grabbed Bucky by the shoulder. Easily, Bucky was able to peel it off, surprising Steve who looked at his metal arm with something akin to recollection.

They grappled fiercely. At one point, Bucky got his metal arm around Steve’s neck and choked him in a head lock. It forced Steve to his knees, but that just gave him leverage.

From the ground, Steve got a firm hold on Bucky’s waist. He let out a crazed growl and flipped Bucky over his back, throwing him to the ground before him. Steve stood while Bucky was still picking himself up off the floor.

He kicked Bucky in the stomach, sending him sliding across the flooring back into a wall. Bucky’s head hit with a sickening crunch. His vision went black and before it could return, Steve was on him again.

Bucky felt himself being heaved up into as sitting position only to be forced back to the ground by a swift punch. Steve struck him again and again. The Snow Soldier was a machine, his fist coming down like a ruthless piston.

“Steve,” Bucky rasped between blows.

Steve growled, but he stopped for a moment to grab the front of Bucky’s shirt and shake him violently.

“Who the hell is Steve!” he shouted.

“You. You are. You’re not their soldier,” Bucky said, even as blood pooled in his mouth. He choking, coughed before he could continue. “Your name is Steve Rogers. You were Captain America and you were- you’re my best friend.”

Steve got up off Bucky and backed away. Once he stood a few meters back he pulled his gun from its holster and aimed for Bucky’s head. His aim was steady, but if his arm had reflected the tremor in his mind, it would be anything but.

Bucky stared down the barrel. His determination did not waver. He was not yet ready to give up on his friend.

“Steve-”

“Shut up!”

In one swift move, Steve lowered his arm and shot Bucky, blowing his kneecap to splinters. Bucky’s bloodcurdling cry of pain echoed off the concrete walls surrounding them.

“Shut up,” Steve hissed again, quieter that time. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, trying to block out the sound. He knew he should have just killed Bucky, but he found it hard to pull the trigger while the young man was screaming. And everything he said... Steve Rogers? Who the hell was that?

“Steve-“ Bucky sobbed, clutching his knee. He could barely breath through the pain.

“You’re my mission,” Steve repeated. He said it again and again sounding more and more unsure of himself each time.

Bucky took several haggard breaths before he could speak again.

“Then do it, Steve,” he choked out. “Just do it. Do whatever you have to do, ‘cause I’m with you until the end of the line.”

Steve took a deep breath and raised his gun again.

This is it, Bucky thought to himself. The hope he’d held on to so vehemently faded. He grit his teeth and prepared himself to die.

The gunshot rang in his ear, deafening him, but the bullet didn’t hit it’s mark.

He wasn’t dead.

All Bucky could hear was a high-pitched hum. He looked to his left where the cement wall had shattered around a bullet hole. He opened his eyes and looked up at Steve.

The Soldier looked right into Bucky’s eyes and spoke into a radio clipped to his collar.

“Миссия завершена,” Steve said. Without another word, he walked out of the room, leaving Bucky bleeding, but alive.

Bucky had barely heard him, and the words were foreign to him, but somehow he understood what Steve had said.

 _Mission completed_.

-

Bucky crawled, gripping his shattered knee cap. He moved across the floor back towards the bomb leaving a trail of blood as he went. The clock was still counting down when Bucky reached the disarming device still attached above it. He had just under a minute to remember all the commands Natasha had shown him.

He could hear footsteps coming down the hall, running, but there was no time to look back or to defend himself. His fingers moved over the device’s screen at a deft pace. The timer was still counting down. Bucky’s blood smeared the glass making the controls finicky.

There were only fifteen seconds left on the timer by the time the clock stopped ticking.

Bucky slowly removed his hands from the device and took a shaky step back.

There was a metallic click and then nothing.

No explosion.

He’d done it. It was all over.

They’d won.

“James!”

Bucky spun around to see Sam and Natasha at the door waiting for him. He let out a relieved sigh and collapsed down onto the ground, leaning back against the diffused weapon.

“Mission complete,” he said, wanting to laugh.

In that bunker, they had their evidence. Natasha was quick to call in to the authorities and outline what had happened. The STRIKE team above was quickly, but subtly set upon by proper government agents who led the rogues away quietly from the ongoing event.

Fireworks continued to fly and the people continued to celebrate, not even realizing that they had been just fifteen seconds from dust.

“We’ll need a bomb squad down in the tunnels,” Natasha said into her cell, no longer scared of now compromised HYDRA using the its GPS to track her down. “Yes, it’s diffused, but a disposal unit should head over on the double.”

While Natasha dealt with the higher-ups, Sam wandered over to Bucky and  gingerly sat down next to him, still preferring one leg over the other.

Bucky watched him carefully with some amusement. “So, you guys ran over here to save me? How’s the leg, Sam?”

“Better than yours, Jesus Christ, Bucky.” Sam shook his head and looked down at Bucky’s bleeding knee. “How are you even conscious right now?”

“Probably the adrenaline.” Bucky tried to shrug, but stopped doing that abruptly when the room started spinning.

Sam let out a disbelieving laugh. “What happened?”

“Had a run in with Steve.”

Sam’s eyes widened with surprised. The expression quickly turned to an angry frown. “Well, Rollins did say he’d be here,” he muttered. “Did you get him?”

Bucky shook his head. No.

“Where is he?” Natasha asked. She approached them, catching the last part of their conversation.

“Gone,” Bucky replied simply. He looked up at the ceiling where a few feet above them Rhodey’s Iron Patriot show was just finishing up with a final brilliant display of sparklers and fireworks.

“So he shot you, but let you live?”

Bucky nodded. “I think- I think- he might be remembering.”

Natasha didn’t want to crush his hope, but she let out a heavy breath and started to reply, “James-” when Sam cut in.

“You’re thinking of going after him, aren’t you?” He asked, staring intently at Bucky’s profile. Natasha’s eyes narrowed at having been cut off, but she forgave Sam when he shot her a pleading glance and nodded towards the victorious, but exhausted soldier sitting before them.

Bucky let out a heavy breath and lowered his head. “I don’t expect you guys to come with me,” he replied.

Sam only smirked. He looked up into Natasha’s sceptical eyes before turning back towards Bucky.

“When do we start?”

-

With HYDRA dismantled and Alexander Pierce in court facing a myriad of charges, Steve had no where to run to. So, he went completely underground. With information that Natasha had dug up for them, Bucky and Sam began their search, but every time they went out to chase a lead they came up empty handed.

The Snow Soldier was a ghost and he wasn’t quite Steve again yet. It quickly became apparent to Bucky that the only way he’d ever see Steve again was when Steve chose to come to him.

As long as that took, he would wait and while he waited, he wouldn’t give up the chase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, commenting and leaving kudos everyone~!
> 
> Your kudos make the unapologetically filthy epilogue smut come faster. (pun intended)


	6. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This final chapter is the epilogue. It is also pure unadulterated TLC and smut. I am 100% unapologetic about the fact that I am concluding with porn as per usual.

A week after they’d saved the world, Bucky’s leg had healed somewhat thanks to the serum that flowed in his blood, but even superhumans had their limits and getting a bullet blown straight through the kneecap seemed to be one of them. Bucky would still be walking with a limp for a long while before his leg was fully mended. Still, at least it would heal, Natasha always reminded him, anyone else would be walking with a cane for the rest of their life not just a few weeks.

The injury put a slight hold on Bucky’s plans to find Steve. The most searching he could do while recovering was from the laptop he’d borrowed from Sam. Sam didn’t mind, he was busy trying to convince Tony Stark to repair his wings for free since the military definitely wouldn’t be footing that bill. They weren’t exactly pleased with him for stealing them for his second job in the first place.

Looking up away from his computer screen for a minute, Bucky laughed at the memory from a few days before. He’d joined Sam on a trip to Stark tower and watched a conversation take place between him and Tony that basically went:

“Come on man.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“Let me ask you something, Sam. Do you have twenty thousand dollars?”

“No, but-“

“Then, no!”

Bucky let out an amused sigh and went back to work. He was scrolling few some files Natasha sent him when his front doorbell rang.

Bucky pushed back his chair and stood with some help from the cane he’d been ordered to use. He limped down the hall, knowing that it was probably Sam waiting in the stairwell, ready to gripe about the exorbitant amount of money he now owed Stark and all the errands the man was going to make him fly.

Shaking his head, Bucky opened the door with a little quip already on the tip of his tongue.

He got it about halfway open before he froze.

“Don’t scream,” was the first thing the man on the other side of his door said.

Bucky stared at his visitor, taking in his unshaven face, his dark, tired looking eyes. “Steve?”

“Hi,” Steve replied. He tried his best to smile, but the expression just didn’t sit right on his face.

He looked... broken. His hair was a mess and it was obvious he hadn’t washed or shaved in days. He must have been sleeping on the streets, living life day to day since HYDRA, his only support network, had collapsed under his feet.

“You can close the door in my face.” Steve spoke quietly, sounding more than a little unsure of himself. “You should close the door in my face. But could we... talk?”

Bucky’s jaw snapped shut. He hadn’t even realized he’d been staring at his old friend open mouthed.

“Yeah,” he breathed out after a moment. “Yeah. Come in.”

With unsteady hands Bucky opened the door wide and stepped aside to let Steve though. The other man entered, but only came in so far as the rug in the front hall stretched. He didn’t make himself comfortable. He didn’t take off his shoes. He just stood there, looking very much like he wanted to bolt.

Bucky remained on one side of the narrow hall while Steve turned and leaned back against the opposite wall. Neither of them spoke, even though Steve had been so sure that he’d been ready for that moment. He’d come with an entire speech practice, but the well-arranged words all seemed to have faded from his mind the moment Bucky opened the door.

Steve glanced from Bucky’s face to his side where he held the cane. The sight of it had Steve squeezing his eyes shut at the memory of what he’d done.

From where he stood, Bucky just stared. His eyes moved across Steve’s face, disbelief evident in his gaze. He was about to speak when Steve beat him to the punch.

“You’re James Buchanan Barnes,” Steve said, opening his eyes so their gazes could meet. “Bucky.”

Swallowing, Bucky could only nod.

“I’m Steve. Steve Rogers.” There was a pause. “We were best friends.”

Again, Bucky nodded, but frowned when he saw Steve shaking his head.

“No, no we weren’t. We were- we were so much more than that, weren’t we?”

Tears were starting to well up in Bucky’s eyes, but he waved them away with a broken laugh. “Going steady,” he replied simply.

Steve cracked a smile as best he could. It didn’t quite reach his eyes, but it was getting there.

“I remember,” he said. “You’re coming back to me. You have been. You’ve been coming back to me.”

Bucky let out a happy sigh. This wasn’t HYDRA’s Snow Soldier. This wasn’t some body to be controlled without a distinguishable consciousness of it’s own. This was Steve.

He did need to say anything, Bucky just knew.

Without thinking he took a step forward, closing the small distance between them. He wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck, pulling him in close for a hug. It brought back memories of that last night before Bucky had shipped out to the front lines all those years ago. That night, Bucky never thought he’d see Steve again. He’d thought he would die... and then he thought Steve had died.

Now, Bucky needed to pull back and look at Steve. He just stared at him, trying to make sure that he really was alive. That he was really himself.

Steve didn’t let him pull back too far. Suddenly, he took a hold of Bucky’s hips and pushed him against the opposite wall. He pressed his forehead to Bucky’s.

Bucky let him. He fell into Steve. His hand gripped the back of his old friend’s neck as he pulled him in even closer.

That first kiss brought back so much. All those winter nights huddling together, Bucky kissing Steve while rubbing his chest after a particularly bad attack. Days letting the backs of their hands touch as they walked down the street because it was as close as they could be to be being seen holding hands.

Of course he had kissed Steve in his new body, but this wasn’t the same, not at all. This time Bucky got a chance to feel all of it. The numbness from shock was worn. He touched Steve’s rough jawline, letting his fingers trail down and caress his neck and chest feeling the hard, defined angles so different from the Steve he’d known before, but still Steve.

“I thought you were dead.” Steve was whispering against his lips, between kisses and panting breaths.

Bucky let out a breathless laugh. “Could say the same about you.”

Steve kissed him again and pressed in closer, but one of his knees bumped into his injured leg. It sent a jolt of pain up straight through to his hip. Bucky hissed.

Steve jerked away from him abruptly, but Bucky brought him back as soon as the pain went away. When he did he could hear Steve muttering to himself.

“I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have touched you. Jesus. I’m sorry.”

Bucky rubbed Steve’s broad back and quieted him.

“I’m fine,” he whispered even while Steve kept trying to pull away.

“No, Buck. I’m so sorry.” Steve pressed his forehead to Bucky’s again, but this time he grit his teeth in an attempt to hold back his tears. “Everything is back. I remember now what I did- what I did- I- I couldn’t- Please, don’t hate me. Please.”

Bucky laughed, but failed to keep the overwhelming sadness and relief out of the sound. He pulled back to look Steve in the eye his most sober expression.

“I could never hate you,” He said adamantly. “Not you. Never you. The only thing I hate is what they did to you and what they made you do.”

Steve took Bucky’s jaw in one hand, touching his face like he thought Bucky would disappear the minute he let go.

“Better me than you,” Steve whispered. Then he kissed Bucky again, surprising him with the ferocity of it. Steve’s lips pressed to his, his mouth open over Bucky’s, tongue pressing inside.

Bucky’s lips parted, his hand around the back of Steve’s neck gripped tighter. Then he pulled back with a wet sound.

“We should stop,” he said, adding, “we’re making out in the middle of my front hallway,” quickly when he saw the anxious look cross Steve’s eyes.

“Oh,” Steve took a step back and breathed a sigh of relief.

Bucky turned and led the way down the hall back towards his bedroom. He had afforded himself few luxuries, but a large bed was one of them. Big as it was, it hadn’t been shared with anyone. No. Since his return Bucky’s libido had been virtually non-existent. It wasn’t has if he’d been trying to be chaste or abstinent, he just hasn’t had any inclination after Steve had died.

That night he’d been kidnapped had been the first time he’d even had an orgasm since...

“Bucky,” he heard Steve whisper. Thankfully it cut off his eerie train of thought, but his mind was still wandering.

Back in Brooklyn, their relationship before had been intimate. Passionately so. Ever since their first night together after the funeral.

However, after everything that had happened, Bucky realized that neither of them would take jumping into the deep end very well. They would go slow.

Steve took hold of Bucky’s hips again, moving him to stand right in front of him. He looked up with a pitiful expression. Sadness and guilt were etched into his handsome features.

“I just kept thinking about that night. When everything came back I kept thinking about what I did to you in that cell and I-” Steve choked on his words, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Steve, you don’t have anything to apologize for,” Bucky whispered, finally coming back to the present. He really didn’t want to think about that night. He still hadn’t quite reconciled everything in his mind and he wasn’t sure he ever would.

Steve bowed his head and nodded. He wanted so badly to believe that Bucky didn’t blame him, that he wasn’t responsible for his actions at all, but it was hard not to blame himself. It was hard not to hate himself.

Bucky pulled Steve’s head forward, holding him just below his chest in a low embrace. Steve’s unkempt beard scratched the place where Bucky’s shirt rode up as Bucky leaned forward and pressing an innocent kiss to the crown of Steve’s head.

“I’m still with you.”

Steve pressed in closer, so close that Bucky could feel his hot breath ghosting along the skin just above his waistline. Steve’s hands went around Bucky’s lower back, returning his embrace. He felt what it was Bucky was trying to push towards him. Forgiveness. Steve could feel the warmth of it, like gentle sunlight on the surface of his skin.

Bucky ran his fingers through Steve’s hair, noticing how dark it was when cropped short.

Bucky was hard from all the intimate contact. He realized it was probably obvious in his sweat pants and given Steve’s position.

“We don’t have to do anything, you know,” Bucky murmured.

Steve pulled back slowly. He held Bucky’s hips in his hands and shook his head.

“No. No, I want to,” Steve said. His blue eyes met Bucky’s earnestly.

“I’m going to make you remember how much I love you.”

“Jesus, Steve.” Bucky flushed, looking away. “You say it as if I could ever forget.”

Bucky’s chest grew hot. He could feel his heart pounding away behind his ribcage as Steve took a deep breath and pressed his forehead against Bucky’s lower abdomen. He could feel Steve’s haggard breaths through his clothes.

God, he wanted more.

“It could be like-“ Steve bit his bottom lip and shook his head. “It will be like it used to,” he uttered instead.

Bucky’s mind filled in everything Steve alluded to but went left unsaid.

Like they used to: slow and soft, with emotion enough to make his chest ache with it, passion that sparked a fire inside and heated the space between his legs until neither of them could take anymore. Some nights, Bucky would ride Steve to completion, worried the whole while that he would lose control and ride him so hard that Steve would just break, shattering into a million tiny pieces. Other nights, Steve would fold himself over Bucky, trying to cover him with his much smaller body while he came moaning breathlessly into Bucky’s ear.

Stirred by the memories, Bucky felt a hot rush burst through him and a pleasurable sensation pooled in his abdomen.

He bit his lip and met Steve’s gaze.

“I want that too.”

-

Bucky stripped off his shirt slowly while Steve remained sitting on the bed in front of him.

As he reached for the waist of his pants, he was interrupted by Steve’s hands running over his chest. Bucky felt the gentle pressure of fingertips running over the scars across his chest.

Bucky’s body was riddled with wounds that had fully healed but left the barest red and white marks in their place. It seemed that, despite altered physiology, some scars never faded.

Steve traced the red marks that stretched along the place where the metal of Bucky’s left arm melded into his skin.

“These are new,” he whispered sadly.

The scars were sensitive, but they didn’t hurt. A tingle ran through Bucky as Steve ran his thumb over that reddened skin. His metal fingers twitched at the pleasurable feeling.

Bucky lowered his head as a blush crept across his cheeks. He felt warm already and when Steve stood and stripped off his shirt everything was burning. They were standing so close, Steve’s broad chest was pressed all along Bucky’s. Wherever their naked skin touched it branded Bucky’s nerve endings with pleasure.

Unlike Bucky’s, Steve’s body was perfection. Not a scratch on him. Not even a single blemish. Steve had nothing to remind him of all the horrible places he’d been or the things he’d been made to do. Whatever scarring he had suffered existed only in his mind.

Worried thoughts left Bucky’s mind when Steve pulled him close, slipping one hand low along Bucky’s back while the other moved from the metal on his chest down, between his legs.

Bucky buried his face against Steve’s neck and moaned. Steve worked him through his pants with one large hand, caressing and squeezing gently until the length of Bucky’s cock was firm beneath his grip.

“Fuck,” Bucky panted out between breaths.

Steve chuckled. It got a big smile from Bucky who never thought he’d hear that sound again. He pulled Steve close and kissed him again.

They sat together slowly at the edge of the bed, Bucky manoeuvring easily into Steve’s lap. They soon lay back together, Steve pressed into the mattress with Bucky blanketed over top of him. Bucky teased, pressing his chest to Steve’s, letting him feel the delicious contact he’d been denied for so long, rolling his hips in a manner suggestive of what was to come.

Eventually, Steve rolled them over into a new position where he could rest between Bucky’s wide spread legs.

Bucky arched back and let out a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a moan. He lowered his head and blinked up at Steve from beneath his lashes, trying so hard to look innocent.

“I thought you came to talk,” he uttered between heated kisses.

Steve blinked. An odd look crossed his face and he moved to sit up, but Bucky stopped him before he could.

“Kidding, Stevie.”

Steve’s eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to protest when Bucky cut him off again, pulling him down into another kiss.

Soon Steve’s eyes closed and he arched himself over Bucky trying to keep the heavy weight of his body up off him in a way that he wasn’t used to ever having to do. Steve cradled the man beneath him with his arms stretched around his back and shoulder, pulling him close, holding him.

Their mouths parted. Their lips were moist, parted and shining with the wetness of their kiss.

Bucky let his head roll back as Steve moved lower. He could feel hot breaths on his neck and the slight tingle of bristle from Steve’s beard. In his pleasure, Bucky splayed his legs further, rocking his hips up to meet Steve’s. Steve met his movements all the while moving lower, pressing opened mouthed kisses to his chest and nipples, letting his tongue meet the sensitive flesh in a way that had Bucky arching up against him with a moan.

Even through the thick cloth of their trousers, both men could feel the other’s ardent hardness. Steve reached for Bucky’s pants made quick work of slipping the cotton fabric off. His own jeans were more of a struggle that Bucky couldn’t help but chuckle at a bit while he tried to pull them off without leaving the bed.

Once they were both naked, Steve wiped the smug grin off Bucky’s face with a another passionate kiss, swiping his tongue over Bucky’s lips before the wet kiss deepened. They tasted each other with a new vigour as their naked bodies writhed together on top of the sheets.

Steve eventually rose up. Leaning away from Bucky he pulled the other man into his lap firmly pulling Bucky’s hips up so his muscled thighs rested over Steve’s.

“Jesus,” Bucky hissed under his breath as he was forced to arch up off the mattress in the new position. It one they’d been able to do when Steve was smaller. However, as much as they both liked the it, Steve still cast Bucky a unsure glance.

“This okay?” he asked even as the hard line of his cock was pressed right up between Bucky’s legs.

Bucky groaned.

“Fuck, yeah.”

Looking down almost bashfully, Steve smiled. Bucky had always had a foul mouth, but it always came out so much more vividly when they were in bed together. If he was being honest, Steve would have to admit he had strong memories of how turned on Bucky used to be able to make him with his filthy tongue and that dirty talk that was so easily drawn from him.

Steve planned to do just that as he lowered himself, sliding down Bucky’s body until his head was just over the other man’s cock. He stroked it, still being as gentle and taking everything very slowly. Rather than calm Bucky, however, this seemed to enrage him.

Bucky canted his hips, thrusting into Steve’s loose grip.

“God damn it, Stevie. You better stop treating me like some doll you took home from church and- fuck!”

Bucky’s rant was cut short when Steve closed his lips over the head of his cock. If his lips weren’t stretched so wide, he would have smirked. With both hands squeezing Bucky’s cheeks, he guided the man beneath him to thrust up.

“Steve,” Bucky breathed. He threw his head back and cried out as Steve drew his tongue over the underside of his cock in one long stroke.

“God! Missed this,” Bucky panted, his eyes squeezed shut. “Missed you.”

Steve pulled off his cock with a chuckle. Bucky whimpered at the loss, but that soon turned into a satisfied sigh. Steve stroked him while he repositioned himself between Bucky’s legs. He held their erections in one hand and pressed them together. Rocking forward, they both thrust eagerly into Steve’s palm again and again. When Steve left go, Bucky’s heavy cock dropped and slapped his stomach wetly.

Steve palmed it one more time before letting his hand dip between Bucky’s cheeks. He found Bucky’s dry entrance and stroked over the rim of it with two fingers. Bucky was forced to bit his lip to hold in a scream when Steve pressed the tip of one just inside for a moment before drawing it out. He did this a few times, teasing Bucky nearly out of his mind with pleasure.

“Need something to-“ Steve paused and even with the beard Bucky could see a blush covering his cheeks, “-get you wet for me.”

“Fuck,” Bucky hissed. He twisted his body to reach the bedside table. It took a few awkward seconds of rummaging around in the drawer before he found some lotion and decided that it would have to do. He tossed it onto the mattress beside Steve before leaning back into the pillows.

Impatiently, Bucky was already fingering himself dry as best he could. He bit his lip, loving the slight burn. He loved it almost as much as he loved the way Steve froze to watch for a moment.

 “Do it.”

The look in his best friend’s eyes then was nearly too much for Steve. He picked up the lube, muttering “Jesus, Bucky,” under his breath.

Steve replaced Bucky’s fingers with his own. Slowly and with care, he opened the other man up for him. It was his first taste of that familiar heat inside Bucky’s body. He was so deliciously tight, but wet with lubrication Steve’s fingers plunged in, stretched and thrust with ease. By the time Bucky was ready, his entire body was shuddering in anticipation.

Bucky rolled onto his side, making room for Steve to spoon behind him. As Steve moved in close, Bucky craned his neck back and drew him into a kiss. He licked the seam of Steve’s lips and dipped his tongue between them. When they broke for air, Bucky let his head collapse down, pillowed on Steve’s massive bicep.

Steve put his hand under Bucky’s thigh, taking a moment to press a gentle kiss to the fading scar on Bucky’s injured knee cap before he pressed inside.

Bucky gripped the sheets and turned his head into Steve’s arm, panting hot breaths against his muscle.

“Fuck- yeah-“ Bucky gasped at the feeling of being filled.

As the full length of his cock bottomed out deep inside Bucky. As Bucky tensed around him, Steve reached to caress gently down the other man’s chest, stroking a calming hand along his ribs. He played with Bucky’s nipples, rolling them until the tiny nubs were rock hard and over sensitive.

Bucky rolled his face into the sheets letting out panting breaths after each thrust. He could hardly remember the last time he’d been so overwhelmingly possessed by pleasure, real pleasure, not that something twisted that made him feel sick to his stomach.

Gritting his teeth, Bucky reached back to touch Steve’s rolling hips, urging him to go faster, harder. He squeezed one of Steve’s muscled cheeks when he obliged.

Bucky was letting out a loud moan on almost every thrust. His body was shaking from the heat coursing through it. Steve didn’t stop for a second, keeping a steady pace that brought them both closer and closer to the edge soon to slip off into climactic oblivion.

Steve leaned over Bucky. When Bucky turned his head to see what Steve was doing, Steve caught his lips in a kiss. Bucky twisted so that he could deepen it, but soon they were both just panting into each other’s mouths.

“Bucky, I’m-“ Steve started, but Bucky silenced him with another kiss.

“Me too,” Bucky gasped out. “Me too, Steve. Fuck, I-“ He didn’t finish. His words were cut off by a pleasured sob. He arched back against Steve painting his abdomen all the way up to his chest with his release. Steve pulled out of him a second later and in his blissful state, Bucky could feel drops of hot liquid land on his lower back, mixing with the slick of sweat already there.

They pulled away from each other then, taking a brief moment to catch their breath. Soon after, Steve edged back over to Bucky once more and rolled him from where he lay on his stomach onto his back.

They embraced.

The kiss the shared in the sweltering aftermath was something sweet, but decadent. Their tongues slid together until they were forced to part for breath. Even then, a thin line of wetness still connected them until they both noticed it and drew back with identical disgusted looks on their faces. They looked at each other and laughed. It was the most real laugh either of them had in a long while. The sound came up boisterously from their bellies and filled the room around them with joy.

After a minute they settled down. Bucky looked up at Steve and ran the back of his hand over Steve’s scruffy beard. Before he could stop himself he started grinning.

Steve’s brow creased. “What?” he demanded.

“You never could grow a beard before,” he chuckled, with a hand over his mouth. “When you were littler.”

Steve scratched his face and shrugged that little fact off.

“Do you like it?”

Bucky cocked his head to one side and stared at Steve’s bearded face. It would take some getting used to. Bucky realized he’d already gotten used to so many of the things in his life that had changed. What’s one more?

Bucky’s eyes softened and he smiled, his face pinching in a playful expression. He pressed one hand to Steve’s bristly cheek and pulled him back in close. Finally, he answered:

“I do.”

-

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU ALL FOR READING~ Fun end note play along as promised~
> 
> Your comments make Steve and Bucky decide to buy a flat in New York and get married. 
> 
> Your kudos encourage me to write more Stucky fanfics~! I have a they-both-become-soldiers one planned as well as a little crack sequel for 'I Already Know'~!
> 
>  
> 
> Come find me on [Tumblr](http://itsanidiom.tumblr.com/)


End file.
